


I might know my heart

by skitzofreak



Series: One Night Stand [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst, Cassian POV, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Coping with trauma, Disassociative Episodes, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Imperialism, Infiltration, Jyn POV, Mentions of Suicide, Mission Fic, Moral Ambiguity, Pre-Battle of Scarif, Ring of Kafrene, Shower Sex, Theft, recently established relationship, spies in love, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-05-01 20:39:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 78,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14528721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: It didn’t matter, he realized suddenly as Jyn’s weight shifted to push herself upright, probably calculating how she could jump over him and leave the room. It didn’t matter if they were still sensitive or awkward or just the most ridiculous two organics to ever attempt whatever-the-hells-this-relationship-was. He could ponder it later, when she wasn’t three seconds from stalking out the door under the mistaken impression that he didn’t want her with him.-After surviving the Invasion of Jedha City, Captain Cassian Andor of Rebel Intelligence is sent to the Ring of Kafrene to discover what kyber crystals, Imperial weapons development, and a scientist named Galen Erso have to do with each other. It's a dangerous, complex mission full of more pitfalls than he can imagine ...but he won't be facing it alone.





	1. Day 0: Infiltration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aveyune23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aveyune23/gifts).



> This is a direct sequel to ['you give me something,'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959959/chapters/27043473) which I wanted to write for a long time and didn't have the guts to try until I got [aveyune23's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aveyune23/pseuds/aveyune23) May the 4th prompt:
> 
> _"Does it ever stop? The wanting you?"_
> 
> Admittedly, I'm going to be quite liberal with this prompt, but I plan for it to be a running theme throughout the story, so I hope it hits the button. If you have not read the first story in this series, then here's a quick summary: after Saw dumped Jyn as a teen, she wound up joining the Alliance but remained a scout working on the edges of the organization, not really making any friends or fitting into any unit, until she was sent to Jedha City to pick up several new Alliance recruits and transfer them into the custody of an Alliance officer. In the course of that seemingly simple mission, she survived an Imperial invasion of the city, got (almost) all of her recruits to safety, and somehow fell into a relationship with that same Alliance officer. Now, Captain Andor and Sergeant Erso have been assigned as partners and tasked with following up on the reason for the Empire's invasion of Jedha and their interest in kyber crystals. Of course, now that they've decided to...work together, they have to figure out how they _work together_.

**[onboard the _Malta,_ Lumina Port, The Steel Ring, Resh District]**

 

Someone was watching him.

Instinct and training kicked in immediately, even before his mind was fully awake, so Cassian didn’t tense his body or jerk his head up to search for the threat. Instead, he drew in a long, slow breath and peered through his eyelashes. He was in his compact cabin onboard the _Malta_ , an old Nestt light freighter he’d been assigned for this operation. He lay on his side in his narrow bunk, facing the screens from the security feeds placed around the ship that flickered in the dim light of the cabin. Still tired and sluggish from the long trip, and unaccountably warm and comfortable, Cassian scanned the screens without moving.

The dual skylines of the Ring of Kafrene glowered at him in the oppressive sallow light of Kafrene’s day cycle from all five security feeds, particularly the topside footage. The _Malta_ sat on the “Resh” half of the station, which meant that the “Osk” half appeared to be looming upside down over the ship. An Alliance operative that Cassian worked with years ago had once told him that the two mirrored halves of the mining station looked like two people reaching longingly for one another, the tall blackstone buildings stretching out across the gap as if to touch. Cassian wasn’t enough of a romantic to agree. In the topside security feed, it just looked like an inverted city crushing down on him, dark, jagged, murderous.

Instinctively, Cassian curled a little further back from the screens, into the warmth of –

He slammed fully awake, his body going rigid and his breath catching, instinct and training forgotten as he suddenly realized who was watching him.

“I woke you up,” Jyn said softly against the back of his neck, her arm pulling away from his ribs and her leg sliding off his hip apologetically.

Cassian’s hand jerked, the urge to reach back and catch her knee almost overpowering his conscious control. He bit down on the impulse and took a deep breath, forcing his muscles to relax, his spiking heartrate to slow down. “It’s fine,” he managed through a suddenly dry throat - woefully inadequate words, not at all what he was thinking. But his heart was jackhammering in his chest, his temperature spiking. How could he explain the mess of thoughts and emotional reactions she triggered in him? _I can’t believe I didn’t even notice you touching me. No one has ever slipped so completely under my guard and it terrifies me._ _You feel unbelievably good_ _and I am almost desperate for you to keep touching me._

Hm, no, definitely not that last one.

 _A month_ , he thought with a faint edge of astonishment and even a little guilt. She had been his…his _partner_ for a solid month, and he was simultaneously already used to her presence and still constantly surprised by it.

She was pulling away, wiggling her arm out from between his shoulder and the pillow, letting a cool rush of air flood against his back as she withdrew. “Sorry,” she muttered, kicking off the blanket he had draped over them a few hours earlier, when the exhaustion and stress of dealing with Kafrene’s notoriously complex landing bureaucracy had finally caught up to them both and they had collapsed in the little cabin together. She was careful, though, to shove the edge of the blanket back around him as she moved, and Cassian would have smiled at Jyn tucking him in if he wasn’t still caught up in the shock of waking up to her. Her nails scraped awkwardly against his shoulder blade as she did it, sending a small jolt through his nerves – a reminder that she was no more used to having a partner than he was. They had, after all, only been together a month (plus the days they had spent in Jedha, dodging the Imperial invasion and struggling just to talk to one another, but Cassian wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to count that, or that he should).

She understood him better than anyone else in his life ever had, but they were both still so…what was the right word? Sensitive. Uncertain. Fragile? Cassian suddenly recalled the heavy crashing sound of the ninety-kilo Shistavanen hitting the old warehouse floor on Jedha, when Jyn had flipped the huge recruit casually over her hip and smashed her into the dirt. Perhaps _fragile_ was not the correct word, then.

It didn’t matter, he realized suddenly as Jyn’s weight shifted to push herself upright, probably calculating how she could jump over him and leave the room. It didn’t matter if they were still sensitive or awkward or just the most ridiculous two organics to ever attempt whatever-the-hells-this-relationship-was. He could ponder it later, when she wasn’t three seconds from stalking out the door under the mistaken impression that he didn’t want her with him. Cassian flipped onto his back just as she tensed to vault over his legs and set his hand against her hip. He miscalculated the move slightly, and his hand unintentionally slipped under her thin undershirt to brush against the warm strip of skin just above the waistline of her trousers. Jyn froze as his fingers grazed against her, and Cassian jerked away again as if he’d been burned. He closed his eyes as a rush of irritation and embarrassment swept through him – he was a fully grown adult, and this was hardly the first time he had ever touched her. Granted, he’d never had anyone like Jyn Erso in his life, but he was behaving even more nervous and unstable than the first night they had met, the first night she had leaned up to kiss him and ended up dramatically reordering his world.

 “Cassian,” Jyn whispered, and Cassian opened his eyes again and looked up at her, kneeling next to him in the tight space between his thigh and the bulkhead. “Do you want - ?” She paused, grimaced, shook her head. He waited one breath, two breaths, three, and then carefully, mindfully, reached out to set his fingers against her hip again.

 _Yes_ , he thought, but his mouth felt wired shut, useless.

Jyn sighed, and then leaned down and pressed her forehead to his. Cassian’s breath caught, his fingers curled tight around her hip, his other hand gripping the blanket still tucked around his chest. “We’re shite at this,” she murmured, and his mouth curved slightly in helpless humor. Yes, yes they were, but she had stayed when he had nothing to offer her, he had come back for her when she thought he should have run. And then Mothma had formally announced that Sergeant Jyn Erso would be his partner in the search for Galen Erso and the Empire’s mysterious new lust for kyber and she…she had stayed again.

More than stayed, actually. He remembered the swooping sensation in his gut when he opened the door to his quarters and found her standing there. He recalled with perfect clarity how the world had gone quiet and warm when she slid her hand around the back of his neck and kissed him like a question ( _I think I might love you_ he had answered, because he did.)

The sense memory of Jyn’s arms around his shoulders combined with the warmth of her breath on his cheek ignited a spark somewhere inside him, making his skin feel flushed, his hands restless. Slowly, in case she wanted to move away, Cassian dragged his palm up her side and curled his fingers around the back of her neck. She hummed low in her throat, but didn’t move. There was so much he wanted to say - _I like you here, I like being able to sleep when you are close, you know some of my worst secrets and you stay anyway, I want you to climb on top of me and kiss me senseless, I want to touch you too_  – but the words stuck in his throat.

His heart beating too fast to be nonchalant, Cassian tilted his head to the side, just enough to lean up and press a feather-light kiss against the corner of her mouth. To his relief, she responded immediately, turning to fit more perfectly against him. Her lips were just a little chapped, her weight positioned awkwardly above him, but it felt warm and real and most of all, _welcoming_. She scraped her teeth lightly against his lower lip and he opened his mouth obligingly, smiling as she hummed in approval. She tasted faintly of the strong black tea she had made in the small ship’s galley a few hours before, and she smelled of gun oil and steel. Cassian ran his hand down her side again, and felt the raised edges of the large scar across her ribs through the thin fabric of her shirt. His fingers itched to slip under the cloth and trace the mark directly, but Jyn shifted her weight again, bracing her elbow on the pillow beside his head. The move brought her chest closer to his, her breasts brushing lightly against him, and he promptly lost his train of thought.

Cassian ignored the tiny flashing light in the corner of the security feeds that told him it was past time he should be up and working, ignored the voice in the back of his head reminding him that he was an operative on a mission that might have dire consequences for the war. He knew, he _knew_ , but for now, just for a moment, he let himself relax into the soft feeling of kissing Jyn like he had all day to do it. He let himself enjoy the gift of a few minutes peace. _Just breathe, Andor, just breathe, and accept what you are given._

And then she ran her free hand down his chest, dragging a line of warmth along his stomach. She moved to brace her hand against his hip, but the change in position made her weight shift a little on the mattress, and her hand moved a little further inward than she probably intended. Cassian jerked, gasping against her mouth at the sudden friction, and Jyn pulled back in clear surprise at finding him already hard against her fingers. They stared at one another for a moment, and Cassian felt his face flush as Jyn bent her head and cautiously ran her hand back down again, brushing her palm torturously lightly against his erection. “Why didn’t you say - ?”

He opened his mouth, but before he could come up with any coherent answer, she squeezed gently around him, and all that came out of his mouth was a shaky exhale. He realized that his hand was flexing tightly around the nape of her neck, his fingertips digging hard into her muscles, and he forced his grip to relax. “Is this,” Jyn frowned a little, and drew her hand back. Cassian was embarrassed to feel his hips jerk again, an involuntary protest to the loss of her touch. “Is this okay?” She asked softly, and Cassian almost choked on a laugh.

“Yeah,” he said, unclenching his fist from the blanket against his chest and reaching up to stroke her cheek, hoping she didn’t notice the tiny tremor in his fingers. “It’s…good, Jyn.”

He winced at his clunky word choice, but the worried lines around Jyn’s eyes smoothed immediately, so he decided it was worth it. She smiled, and on her face the sallow light of Kafrene’s day cycle turned golden and warm. “We have,” she glanced up at the security feeds, her eyes tracking to the corner where the chrono blinked at them, “a little time.”

Her voice was even and confident, but she looked down and away from his face when she said it. She knew as well as he did that they had a fiendishly difficult task, tracking the kyber crystals in which the Empire had developed a sudden and violent interest - and Force only knew how little time to accomplish it, so every minute was precious. They needed to get up, needed to start tracing the few, scattered references and rumors they had before all their fragile leads vanished into dust.

Jyn let her hand come to rest on his hip again and ran her thumb in small, gentle circles along the crease of his thigh, and smiled a quiet, knowing grin as he twitched in response. She tilted her head and arched against his hand, sighing when he caressed her neck tentatively.

On the other hand, he reasoned, they had what would probably be a brutally long day ahead of them, full of frustration and dead ends, and of course, the perpetual danger of walking around a heavily-patrolled Imperial ecumenopolis. They needed to be sharp, prepared for both the mental and physical strain of their work.

Jyn swung her leg over his hips and cupped both her palms around his jaw, her fingers curling back into his hair. “I want - ” She leaned down and pressed her forehead to his again, whispering her confession against his cheek. “Can we have just a little time?”

Someday, Cassian thought from within the golden haze rapidly filling his mind, he was going to be brave like that. He settled both hands on her hips and tugged lightly, swallowing back another groan as she immediately rolled her hips and grinned in response. Cassian tugged at the hem of her shirt, tracing his fingertips along the skin of her lower back, whisper-soft and questioning.

“Yes,” she murmured against his jaw, and he slipped his hands under the hem to push the fabric up her back. He paused at her shoulders, savoring the feel of her muscles shifting under his palms. Jyn sat up (sending a wave of pure blue pleasure crashing through his body), and impatiently yanked the shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. She pulled off her reinforced combat bra next, but before Cassian could fully appreciate the sight of her newly bared upper body, she surged back down and tilted his face up with her hands, kissing him hard and smiling against his mouth as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in closer.

His own clothing felt too thick and coarse against him now; he wanted them gone, wanted to be rid of the last barriers between his skin and hers. He should…he should ask her to sit up, help him strip them away. Jyn stretched her body along his, her warmth and weight pressing him down into the mattress, and Cassian closed his eyes and decided that this was good, too. This was…he already had so much. A month ago, six months ago, just having someone this close to him would have been little more than a fantasy, a bright dream that he would have smothered in the shadows of his head just to survive it. Jyn scraped her fingers over his scalp, down his neck, and dug them into his shoulders to balance herself over him and it was _enough_. No, it was more than enough. He didn’t have the words, didn’t have anything that could describe what it felt like to have her kiss his throat and hum in quiet approval when he ran his hands up and down her back in response. He would never have the words to explain why his breath hitched and his mind went as golden and indistinct as the light in their cabin when she wrapped herself around him and sighed against his chest as if she was happy to be here, happy to have him hold her, too.

There was just no point in trying to verbalize it.

Still, the shirt was starting to get irritating, the trousers a bit…tight. But Jyn buried her hands in his hair again (sending a flash of heat from his scalp down his spine) and he copied her in kind, ignoring the rest because this was what she wanted and this was _good_.

A loud buzzer sounded through the ship, harsh enough to make the metal walls vibrate. Jyn shoved herself up in immediate response, her hand flying up to the blaster clipped to the wall just over their heads. Cassian lay still beneath her, watching her kneel over him with her lips red from kissing him, hair mussed from sleep and his hands, naked from the waist up and yet somehow fierce and deadly as she aimed the blaster at the door. Her free hand braced against his chest as if to push him down and out of the line of fire, and he wondered if she could feel his heart twisting under her palm at the gesture.

The buzzer ended as abruptly as it began, and Cassian worked hard to keep his face neutral as Jyn blinked and glanced from the unopened cabin door to the blaster in her hand and finally down at Cassian. Gently, he settled his hands on her knees and ran them up her thighs. “Message alert,” he murmured. “Priority level.”

Jyn bit her lip, then scowled at him, as if daring him to laugh. “I’ve never worked on a Nestt,” she said in a tight voice, re-engaging the blaster’s safety and clipping it back in place on the bulkhead. The artificial yellow light glinted in her hair and on her skin as she moved, and Cassian wanted to sit up and gather her close, wanted to bury himself in her ferocity, wanted –

A priority message meant something significant may have changed, possibly the mission parameters themselves, or the objective, or even that the whole op was cancelled and they had to return to base immediately. Cassian bit down on the inside of his cheek to get himself under control, then looked around for Jyn’s clothes. “I should have turned the volume on the message system down. Sorry.” Her clothes were just within his grasp in an untidy pile next to the bunk; he ignored the friction of Jyn’s body against his groin as he twisted to grab them and hand them to her without sitting up.

The embarrassed glare on her face turned resigned, then faded into her normal watchfulness. “’s fine.” She took the bra and shirt without comment, but shot him a hooded look as she stayed exactly where she was, straddling him while she pulled them slowly back on. If it was meant as punishment, he thought with some amusement, she was missing the mark. True, every little shift and movement she made sent a shock of restless desire that he could not act on, but Cassian could think of a lot of worse places to be than under Jyn while she gently tormented him. So he simply lay there and watched, committing to memory the image of a gold-washed Jyn straddling him, her back arched slightly as she tugged her shirt over her head, her face still a little flushed. He didn’t flinch, either, when Jyn leaned forward and half crawled up him to reach for something over his head – ah, her overshirt, still folded neatly on the shelf overhead, where he had put it last night. She sat back on her heels (her weight, once again, pressing down on his aching erection and making him shiver), and pulled that shirt on, too. She took her time adjusting the buttons, and Cassian dug his fingers into her hips to hold her still, clenching his jaw but refusing to show any other reaction on his face. He could play this game too, and he already knew he was more patient than she.

Jyn looked him directly in the eye, and he saw the challenge there as clearly as if she’d spoken. She didn’t move her hips, didn’t strain against his hold, but she stretched over his head (a move that changed the angle of her body beautifully against his and made his every muscle lock up for a breathless second) and plucked her weapon’s harness from the hook next to the bunk. She sat back up again significantly faster this time, before he could brace himself for it. Cassian couldn’t help the short, sharp breath he took as her weight rocked against his groin, though he managed to keep it from turning into a gasp. Jyn smirked at the tiny sound anyway, and casually slung the harness around her waist, twisting to buckle the holster strap around her upper thigh.

Her smirk widened a little, and Cassian caught himself rubbing his thumbs in small, tight circles against the inside of her hips. He grunted, and shifted his grip so that she was still mostly immobilized (give her a centimeter, and she’d have him forgetting his objectives, and possibly the entirety of the Basic language while she was at it) but now he wasn’t clinging to her quite so…invitingly. He felt her tense under his hands, testing him, but they really did need to get a move on, no matter how much he wanted to let go and let her...they needed to get a move on. So Cassian kept his grip and felt her relax against him, conceding the victory.

Jyn finished securing the holster, and then she paused, tilting her head and looking down at him like she was considering her next move.

Cassian flicked his tongue over his dry lips and raised his eyebrows at her.

She took the blaster from the wall again and locked it into her holster without breaking eye contact. One of her hands slid under his head, combing through his hair again (he did not let his eyes slide closed, although they drifted a little in that direction against his will), and then slipped under the pillow and pulled out the small vibroblade they kept there. That one went into her harness belt, at the small of her back. Her longest vibroblade was clipped into the wall rack next to the blaster, safely tucked into the custom-fitted wrist-sheath she favored. Jyn had to look away from his face to push up her sleeve and strap the finicky little latches to her forearm, but for some reason her fingers fumbled on the metal, and she frowned and cursed under her breath. She tried again, and they fumbled once more, almost causing the wrist-sheath to drop to his chest. Cassian caught it before it landed, and she gave him a sheepish little smile and held her wrist out, a silent request for help. Without thinking, he reached up with both hands to latch the thin straps around her arm, and just as the last clasp slid home, he realized his mistake.

Her grin at him now was positively wicked as she dropped down to kiss his ear and whisper, “thanks,” and then she rolled her newly-freed hips, hard, against him. The noise that tore out of his throat before he could stop it was thoroughly embarrassing, but for a blissful moment, Cassian didn’t care.

“Tease,” he said through grit teeth, but there was no edge to it. She’d pulled a classic con beautifully on him, and part of him was exasperated but most of him could _live_ in a moment like this, her muffled laugh in his ear and her body warm and sweet above him. Jyn sat back up ( _again_ , had she no mercy?) and Cassian almost gave up right then and flipped her over on the narrow bunk, but she glanced at the security feeds and his sanity reasserted itself at the reminder.

Jyn looked from the screens to the deck by the bunk, and the frown this time was more distracted. “My socks?” Cassian waved a hand vaguely towards the small sonic laundry-box built into the bulkhead next to the bunk, and she gave him an unimpressed stare. “Really?”

“You wore them for hours yesterday,” he shot back. “It doesn’t cost anything to wash them every day.”

He saw her hesitate at that, and reminded himself that Jyn had lived among the Partisans for most of her young life, then as a homeless teen, and finally as a low-ranked soldier in the rebel army. Private showers were still a luxury to her, let alone personal laundry-boxes. He saw her flick her eyes from the flap in the wall to him, and then back again quickly, as if ashamed to be caught worrying about it, ashamed to be seen to care. It made his chest ache, and more words he wished he could say crowded into his throat and froze on his tongue: _you don’t need my permission to use the things on this ship, nothing here is mine either, I won’t judge you for your upbringing, tell me about your childhood, tell me anything, don’t be ashamed._

_Never be ashamed with me._

“On Fest,” he started, and paused, cleared his throat, found himself reaching for her again. This time, though, he rested his hands on her waist instead of her hips, and pulled her down to him. She came willingly (her weapon harness dug into his stomach a little, but it was worth it to have her so close), and Cassian ran his hands up and down her back again, soothing now rather than seeking. “We cleaned everything with water,” he said into her hair, trying not to think too hard about the feel of her lips against his collarbone or her body curled tight against his. “It was cheaper, easier, because of all the snow. Everyone had a water shower, or a water laundry-box. The trick,” he laughed softly, “the real trick was getting it warm enough to wash yourself all the way before bits of you froze off.”

“We had,” she started, stopped. Cassian waited. “On Onderon. It rained a lot. We joked - ” she shrugged, her voice going a little distant and careless as if this were some old story that didn’t matter to her at all. Her heartbeat was still fast against his chest, though, and he didn’t think it was wholly a symptom of their little game a moment ago. “If someone stank, we joked that it had been too long since they’d been in a battle, because they hadn’t been outside. Hadn’t been washed by the rain. Sometimes if it was really bad, Saw -” she swallowed, “Saw would throw them out into the jungle until a rainstorm hit.”

Cassian turned his head and kissed her temple, more elated at her simple story than he probably should be and not worried about it. Getting information out of people was his job description, and he was good at it, but it was different with Jyn.  Everything was different, with Jyn. “It doesn’t rain on Kafrene,” he said, and when she lifted her head to look at him, he continued in a grave voice, “so for my sake, I hope you’re alright with the laundry-box.”

Jyn rolled her eyes, but the tension around her mouth eased into something like a smile. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you.”

“Prissy princess,” she grumbled, and swung her leg over him, landing gracefully on her feet by the bunk and reaching to scrape her hair from her face and into a messy bun.

“Yes,” he replied serenely, drawing up one knee to at least grant himself a little dignity as he watched her pull open the little sonic in the wall to retrieve her socks, and bend down to pull them on. Jyn shot him another smirk through the rumpled locks of hair still hanging in her face as she toed on her boots next.

“Priority message, Captain,” she said mock-sternly. “Better get a move on.”

Cassian swept a hand in the general direction of the cockpit. “On your lead, Sergeant.”

Her soft laugh drifted back to him on the golden light as she slipped out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if the two halves of Kafrene canonically have different names, but I like to think it's a bit like Manhattan and the Bronx, or something along those lines. It's technically the same city, but it's not _really_ the same city, since it's literally divided in half. Also, "Resh" and "Osk" = the aurebesh letters for "R" and "O."
> 
> The Malta is a [Nestt light freighter](http://deckplans.00sf.com/SoroSuub/Nestt/nestt.html), because I needed them to have a little space, and also, U-Wings seem to be largely associated with rebels, which would make Jyn and Cassian's presence on Imperial-operated Kafrene very suspicious. Therefore, Intel Command has assigned them a Nestt.
> 
> The nod towards Space Customs being a huge pain (particularly in an Imperial Trade Post) is from [this post](https://skitzofreak.tumblr.com/post/172417761599/sleepykalena-teagrl-silvergryphon), which is a great bit of nerdy Star Wars reading.


	2. Day 1: Reconnaissance

\--

[IMPSERV_ KAFRENE_PUBLIC ACCESS_LOG #3273LY6883]

[Incoming Message]

[Enter Password: ************************]

[Enter Decryption Key:***********]

[Decoding…]

 

Subj: PRIORITY UPDATE

To: [Error]

From: [Error]

Received intelligence from Asset #CD56 [HoloNet News – research story 6720HHU_CORUSCANT: “The Kyber Conundrum: Why The Markets Are Suddenly Desperate For A Defunct Religious Artifact”]. Data crunchers suspect kyber being funneled to weapons’ development facility, location unknown. Possible connection to Target #GE971 [G. Erso]. Request surveillance of attached list of facilities on Kafrene [See Attachment]

Good luck.

[Delete Message Y/N?]

\--

 

**[Evir N’halo Market, The Copper Ring, Resh District]**

The Sabat slammed into Cassian’s shoulder as he shoved past, and Cassian grit his teeth and kept walking. The Resh-side outer rings were composed of hulking, interlocking squared-off buildings of oxidized black metal that loomed over the claustrophobically narrow streets, with faded banners hanging overhead to mark out the different rings from one another. At the moment, he and Jyn were pushing their way through the heavily trafficked market area known as the Copper Ring, where shimmering reddish-gold banners flapped overhead in the artificial breeze. A few streets over, he could see the red-gold banners abruptly switched to a vibrant silver, marking the Silver Ring, where there were more shops and the buildings were in significantly nicer states of repair. In the opposite direction, the banners turned a darker flat grey to mark the Iron Ring, where there were almost no shops, the buildings so old and decrepit that sheets of corrugated metal and old ship parts could be seen nailed to the walls or roofs. In the Iron Ring, the poorest of Kafrene’s residents tried to patch their meager homes with whatever scraps they could find.

Not that the Copper Ring, for all its bright banners and fancier name, was in much better shape. This was still the outer edge of Kafrene's linked cities, far from the wealthier rings near the great Central Gear, the axle of the huge drill that bit into the dual planetoids. At the Gear, wealthy traders and Imperial commanders built their elegant homes into the black pillar connecting the two halves of Kafrene. But further out, where Cassian and Jyn pushed their way through the steaming, hissing streets, there was significantly less wealth and no elegance to speak of. Crowds of travelers, traders, miners, and various less-savory characters crushed through the closed-in spaces, all scurrying from one ring to another, and within the first hour in the Copper Ring, The stench of too many bodies in too small of a space mixed with the ammonia smell of leaky breathers and cheap air recyclers, and the chronos mounted at every streetlight blared on the hour, reminding everyone constantly that they had places to be, credits to make, work to complete. The crowd shouted and snarled and shoved, and within the first hour Cassian had been knocked back, stepped on, or pawed at enough times to lose count. Jyn had it even worse, her smaller size making her look like a pushover to some of the less patient pedestrians. She had almost been slammed to the ground twice, and he had been quick to step between her and one particularly rough-looking Aqualish when the latter knocked her into a wall. Cassian was mildly surprised she hadn’t broken someone’s limbs, judging by the hard line of her jaw and the way her fists kept bunching at her sides. (He was less surprised at the urge to break a few bones himself, when he saw her body jerk against the black stone building, but he wasn’t going to insult her by letting her know _that_.)

A Gree shuffled close to his side, their scuffed breather-mask leaking a choking cloud of ammonia, and Cassian had to dodge to avoid getting a tentacle to the face. The move jolted him up against Jyn’s shoulder, and he shook his head at her and mouthed a quick ‘sorry’ when she looked up. Jyn shrugged, and directed her irritable glower back to the crowd. She adjusted her dark blue scarf around her head, tucking the edge carefully under her chin, and the glimmer of embroidered stars glinted under her fingertips before she hid them neatly away. Cassian realized with a ridiculously pleased little jolt that she was wearing the scarf he had given her on Jedha, wrapped in such a way to hide the swirl of stars stitched all along one side.

As he watched, her eyes widened and then narrowed, and Cassian followed her sightline to see…ah, a ‘trooper patrol. Standard configuration, four ‘troopers following in loose formation behind their commander, rifles in hand and blank, skull-like faces pointed straight ahead. Only the leader looked around, examining shop fronts and pedestrian faces while he strolled at a leisurely pace through the crowd, which parted before the patrol like nervous herdbeasts. There was a certain swagger to the squad commander which told Cassian he enjoyed seeing the multitudes scatter and shy before him. A bully, no doubt, who had found his place in a low-grade leadership position and now wrung what pathetic bits of joy he could out of his miserable existence by laughing at the fear he inspired in -

Jyn’s elbow dug into his side, and Cassian tore his stare off the ‘troopers, forced his jaw to relax, his shoulders to drop down and back. He glanced over at Jyn instead, and saw her looking at him with wary but understanding eyes. He sighed, shook his head, and gave her the ghost of a rueful smile. She leaned a little closer, ignoring the indignant clicking from a hairy blue-grey Harch that had been angling to walk between them and now had to veer around. “Should we go up?” She jerked her chin upwards, where rows of catwalks made each of the levels of Kafrene’s interlocking buildings accessible. He caught another brief glimpse of embroidered stars around her cheekbone, and resisted the urge to reach out and tuck it in for her.

Cassian shook his head. There were no stormtroopers on the catwalks, but the metal walkways were even more narrow than these streets, and had fewer escape routes. Much easier to get trapped up there than down here. A few seconds later, he was reminded of another disadvantage to the upper routes. An alarm began to blare, a klaxon that sounded in several registers, even those beyond Human hearing, and a long line of red lights began to flash about twenty meters down the street from Cassian and Jyn. Jyn’s hand flew to his arm and gripped his sleeve tight, and then relaxed a moment later when she realized what was happening. She jerked away quickly, obviously embarrassed to be caught off guard.

Cassian stepped a little closer and carefully set his hand on the small of her back, making a point of not looking at her as he did so. Instead, he focused on the flashing lights, watching as the crowd cleared back on both sides as if waiting for something large to pass. Even the ‘troopers stopped their slow patrol and waited patiently. A few seconds later, the ground rumbled beneath their feet, a long ring of metal about as thick as Cassian’s arm, stretching off in both directions and out of sight, long enough to encircle the entire city, rose out of the ground underneath the row of lights. It arched up, up, far overhead, rising even higher than the colorful banners that flapped overhead, almost out of sight as it hovered between the two mirrored cities. Idly, he wondered what this looked like from the Central Gear, the endless rise and fall of the rings around the shaft.

The ring left a small gap in the street between the two halves of the crowd, small enough to jump over (although it would be phenomenally stupid to try). The buildings on either side also suddenly had a gap about the width of the rising ring, too. Under his palm, Jyn’s back tensed, and he absently ran his hand up and down her spine before remembering that they were in public and she might hate the open display. He kept his eyes on the shifting scenery, but dropped his hand away quickly, tucking it into his jacket pocket. The buildings and the crowd on the other side of the rising ring slid sideways – well, technically, Cassian corrected himself, everything on _his_ side of the ring was moving sideways as well, in the opposite direction. Both the Silver and the Copper Rings were rotating counter to one another, re-configuring the layout of the city, allowing the great drill deep underneath their feet to bite ever harder into the planetoid's metal-rich rock. The whole process took about a standard minute, and ended when the ground stopped rumbling, the street aligned with an entirely new block, with a new crowd of people looking on from the other side of the lights. A new crowd that did not, he noted, have any ‘troopers lounging along the side of the street. The patrol they had spotted was now several blocks to the east, which made some of the tension in Cassian’s muscles relax.

The klaxons changed their tone, now sounding one long, continuous blast as the thin ring of metal descended back down into the street and locked into place, filling the gap between the Ring Districts. A heavy _clunk_ that Cassian could feel vibrating up his boots through the street, and then the klaxons and the flashing red lights simultaneously went out. The babble of the crowd filled the silence immediately, and Cassian found himself being – once _again_ – impatiently shoved out of some hustling local’s way.

Jyn grabbed his wrist, half pulling his hand from his pocket as she marched resolutely into the crowd, crossing the line into the Silver Ring. He stretched his legs and pulled even with her in a few steps, methodically noting the architectural changes in Silver Ring (more balconies for high-ground shots, more banners that hid the upper level crowds, more security grates on the storefronts, fewer beggars or shifty looking merchants selling obvious knock-off products on rugs or folding tables). All the while, Jyn’s hand on his wrist nagged at the corner of his attention, and he debated quietly twisting his arm and sliding her grip down to his hand. Not entirely a sentimental move, because these streets were just as crowded as the Copper Ring, and now he could see the occasional hover-palanquin shoving the pedestrian traffic to the side, as well. Holding her hand would make it easier to keep together in this chaos.

On Jedha, he had looped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight against his side even before he knew that she would allow it, before he dreamed that she would become as important to his life as she was. But that was on Jedha, where he had the excuse of a cold desert night and her thin coat. But Kafrene was…she did not need the warmth. He did not need to keep her pinned to his side. Holding her hand, though, that might be acceptable. In this mess of a city, anyway.

Cassian gave a simpering Quarren trying to sell him some kind of handbag a stare that sent the merchant scampering back to his stall, and before he could back out of it like a coward, twisted his wrist to pull Jyn’s hand into his. He misjudged, though, moving just as someone on Jyn’s other side jarred her back a step, and he felt her fingers slide through his and drop away. He glanced down, and caught Jyn flashing him an unreadable look, her face turned partially away and her hand flexing at her side. Then she hooked her thumbs into her belt, pointedly looking up and away from him as she scanned for threats. It occurred to Cassian a beat too late that she probably thought he had ripped his wrist from her grasp on purpose.

But that was – he had not meant – Cassian stepped closer to Jyn, her shoulder warm against his, and leaned over to assure her that he had not been pulling away.

“Colorful,” Jyn said abruptly, before he could get a word out. She was looking determinedly at the nearest alleyway, where a thick coat of graffiti turned the black walls into a riot of garish colors.  

“Yes,” Cassian answered automatically. “Listen - ”

Jyn cut him off with a snort, shaking her head. “Someone wrote the whole _Meditations On Vice_ in bright pink paint. Even the," she smirked, " _explicit_ bits. You see that?”

He hadn’t, and he didn’t really care, but Cassian nodded anyway to buy himself a moment to think of the right words.

Overhead, a distant roar shook the silver banners, and a shadow drifted across the crowd, headed for the Central Gear. TIE fighter, returning to the Imperial base in the Gear from some patrol. Most of the crowd turned their faces up to watch it pass, but more than a few bent their heads instead. Next to him, Jyn’s face was tilted down, but he saw her watching the passing fighter through her eyelashes all the same, tugging her dark scarf a little more firmly down over her forehead.

The realization of his own stupid behavior slapped him like a rebuke from his first field instructors, _los vientos fríos matan a los incautos, soldado._  What the many hells was he doing? They were deep in enemy territory, and he was being a fool. Cassian jammed his hands back into his jacket pockets and swallowed the selfish words on his tongue.

“We’re almost there,” he said instead, straightening his shoulders and reminding himself to scan the overhead walkways, though there were too many possible sniper positions to mark them all. Kay would have a field day mapping this place out. In his absence, Cassian did his best to mark avenues of approach, bottlenecks, hunker-down spots, and sheltered zones – because even in a city firmly under their control, the Empire clearly had no issue sending air combat units blazing overhead. On Jedha, it had taken all of a day before the Empire was willing to drop bombs on residential areas – would they hold out longer in a relatively metropolitan city like Kafrene? Hopefully, he would have no cause to find out.

“I’ve seen that before,” Jyn said, cutting through the sour trend of his thoughts again, and Cassian noted that her gaze was now fixed on a large red symbol in dripping paint on a large dumpster off the main thoroughfare. It was an intricate pattern, a myriad of smaller symbols that flowed together into an angular design, like an arrow pointing down the length of the alley. Next to him, Jyn tilted her head like she was trying to read the symbols as they curled inside the pattern. “It looks a lot like…”

“You!” A mechanical buzz jolted them both, and Cassian turned immediately, his face sliding into neutral out of long habitual response to that particular kind of modulated voice. The stormtrooper helmet gleamed at him from a few paces away, white as death. Cassian shifted his weight to the side, effectively stepping between the ‘trooper’s line of sight and Jyn. He felt her hand press briefly against the middle of his back, and then she slipped somewhere to his right, walking like she was wholly unconnected to him. She would circle around the ‘trooper and get into a better support position, should this go wrong.

The ‘trooper marched through a crowd that parted nervously before him, until he was directly in front of Cassian, his rifle slung in his arms in a painfully correct Pre-Firing Position. The rifle itself was so polished it gleamed. The ‘trooper’s armor was unmarked, not even any wear or roughness around the upper edge of the breastplate where terrifying skull-like helmets often caught on their own chest protection, and the seams of the gauntlets were thick and smooth, not thinned in that particular uneven manner of older, more experienced ‘troopers. This was a green soldier, probably just out of Indoctrination Training. Cassian’s stomach sank – a rookie stormtrooper was always the worst kind. Fresh from the brutal physical and mental conditioning of Indoc, usually stewing in some awful combination of terror of their superiors and the dark thrill of discovering everyone else was terrified of _him_ – Cassian could practically see the thoughts flying through the ‘trooper’s head. The mask made him anonymous to anyone who didn’t have an ident scanner (typically meaning anyone who wasn’t a ‘trooper captain or above). The mask made him feel safe. The armor made him an authority.

And the rifle made him powerful.

“Loitering in the alleyways is a suspicious activity,” the ‘trooper said as he came to a crisp halt in front of Cassian, his heels practically clicking (oh yes, this one was definitely fresh out of Indoc, probably still shouted a ‘sir’ on both the front and back end of every sentence when talking to his superiors). “Show me your scandocs immediately, and state your business in this ring. Let's go!”

Too many words, too much explanation. An older ‘trooper simply demanded documents. Even his voice sounded young, despite the modulator. In the few seconds he spoke, Cassian considered his options. Easiest would be to hunch his shoulders, smile, be the affable, apologetic immigrant bumbling around this big, bewildering city, _sorry sir, here is my scandocs, oh no, my Basic is poor, so sorry, thank you for your time –_ hm, no, too much swagger in the ‘trooper’s step, too much stiffness in the shoulders. Yet another natural bully in armor. Any power Cassian gave him would only serve to make him more confident, more aggressive. He might even decide to turn this confrontation physical, shove Cassian around, just to see if he could get away with it, just to keep that rush of power pumping through him. Cassian knew how to take the aggression, how to keep his vital areas protected while still looking like he was helpless, how to keep his face turned away just enough. He knew how to survive without being remembered. If he were alone, he might prefer that route to potentially drawing more Imperial attention, but -

In the corner of his eye, a flash of dark blue, and the faintest glimmer of stars.

Abruptly, Cassian straightened and squared up with the stormtrooper, stepping sharply forward and into the Imperial’s space. He spoke quick and crisp, his voice snapping with authority. “Unit and registration number, Trooper.”

The ‘trooper actually jolted back half a step, thrown off guard by the aggressive response. “What?”

Cassian stepped closer again, crowding him back, scowling, his voice just loud enough to draw a little attention from the people moving around them, just loud enough to signal to the soldier that he didn’t _care_ if people heard him speaking. In his chest, his heart began to hammer against his ribs. “Regulation four tack seven tack nine tack Bravo, no stormtrooper below captain rank may patrol without appropriate and trained back up,” Cassian recited, cold, clipped. He looked pointedly at the ‘trooper’s rank cylinder clipped to his right wrist. “Query, you are ranked _captain_ , Trooper?”

Cassian was right, this one was fresh out of Indoctrination; his instinctive response to the biting, authoritative tone of a military instructor was immediate. “Sir, negative, sir!”

“Regulation one tack nine tack zulu, no stormtrooper without level three processing qualifications may at any time arrest an Imperial citizen,” Cassian went on almost before the ‘trooper had finished speaking. Technically, this regulation was real, but most experienced ‘troopers knew that it was administrative bullshit, in place only to appease the Senators who still made noise about Citizen Rights and the abuses of civil law enforcement. These days, the Senate was barely tolerated by the Emperor, and largely ignored by the general Imperial military.

Of course, a newly minted ‘trooper fresh out of Indoc would not know how little weight that regulation held; in his masked head, all regulations were the Word of the Emperor, backed up by the Wrath of the Drill Instructor. Behind the dark eyeplates of the stormtrooper helmet, Cassian could almost see the young soldier’s eyes go wide. “Query,” Cassian barked, forcing himself not to flinch at the hollow clank of armored shins as the ‘trooper actually snapped to attention at the tone, “You are signed off on your level three processing qualifications, Trooper?”

“Sir, negative, sir!”

Cassian raised his chin slightly, just enough so that he appeared to be looking down his nose at the ‘trooper (a difficult trick, since ‘troopers were selected for their tall stature and often fed stimulants and steroids – and also a risk, exposing his throat to the enemy, who might note that Cassian’s pulse was still racing madly). “Once again, _unit_ and _registration number_ , Trooper.”

“Sir, this stormtrooper reports to 603rd Division, 9th platoon, Wesk Squad, sir! Sir, this stormtrooper is designated VX0227, sir!” The mechanized voice wavered slightly as the ‘trooper rattled off his current billing; he didn’t know Cassian’s authority to ask, to file a complaint, to maybe have the soldier punished for breaking a regulation. The longer Cassian dragged this out, the more likely that the stormtrooper would start asking questions of his own, maybe even get bold enough to actually scan for rank cylinders himself.

He needed to end this, soon. Cassian ran through his mental roster of Corps in the Thand sector. The 603rd was headquartered in Noe’ha’nan, but the 9th platoon specialized in urban patrols. They were one of the largest units in the sector, too – for all this greenhorn ‘trooper knew, Cassian was one of his direct (and highly placed) superiors. Good, that took some of the pressure of Cassian’s performance, but not all of it. He was still playing a dangerous game, and he needed an out.

“VX0227,” Cassian repeated in an ominous tone, and now he shoved forward until he was right in the ‘trooper’s faceplate. The Imperial almost quivered with tension as he fought to stay at attention without bending back and away, “Query. If you are not level three, what was your plan of action, Trooper, if you arrested me?”

“Sir!” The stormtrooper shifted his weight slightly, and Cassian made a point of glancing down, obviously noting the movement, and deepening his frown. The ‘trooper froze immediately – fidgeting in formation was one of the first ways a stormtrooper trainee learned about the heavy hand of the Indoc program’s ‘demerit’ system. “Sir, I would have passed you on to my commanding officer, sir!”

“Query,” Cassian growled, now staring through narrowed eyes and asking the question every rookie Imperial soldier dreaded most. “Who is your commanding officer, VX0227?”

The stormtrooper hesitated, and Cassian reached for the datapad on his belt, snapping it open and making a show of "scanning" the stormtrooper’s rank cylinder (the little flashlight feature in his datapad had a setting that turned the light a shade of red very similar to Imperial rank scanners, and someone unfamiliar might not note the difference). His heartbeat was so loud now that he fancied the soldier might hear it, but he kept his tone cold, his eyes narrowed. “I assume, Trooper, that you have been posted here at least long enough to be entered into the SIDS, correct?” Cassian saw the Imperial’s shoulders tighten as he named the system meant to track all stormtroopers’ records throughout their career, noting all awards and commendations, but also demerits and reprimands. He leveled a disapproving stare over the top of the datapad. “Unless you have been derelict in maintaining your documents?”

“Sir, negative, sir!” the stormtrooper rushed to say, and then, “Sir, this stormtrooper is registered in SIDS, sir. And, uh, sir! My commanding officer is Lieutenant Havar, designation HV9942. Sir.”

Cassian made a few precise taps on his datapad screen, taking care to angle it so the ‘trooper couldn’t see the blank screen, and then snapped the ‘pad back to his belt and nodded.

“Understood. Dismissed, Trooper.”

“Sir!” The ‘trooper hesitated again, his right arm twitching, clearly torn between saluting a man who acted like an officer and not saluting a scruffy man in work clothes on the street.

Cassian refused to hold his breath, refused to acknowledge how close to the line he was walking, and lifted an irritated eyebrow. “ _Dismissed,_ Trooper.”

“Sir!” The ‘trooper apparently decided that saluting was the safer option, and snapped off a sharp one. Cassian nodded marginally, disdain and boredom in his face and posture, until the soldier turned on his booted heel and marched through the crowd.

Cassian waited a moment longer in case anyone was watching, the sounds of the Silver Ring filter through the pounding of his heart. No, it was alright, he was far enough out of the main crowd that only a few people were even close enough to notice the encounter, and those were busy keeping their eyes averted, away from the ‘trooper and the man who spoke like an Imperial officer. Away from the man who recited stormtrooper regulations in a cold, vicious voice. An old, weary-looking Human man met Cassian’s eyes for a brief moment, paled, and pivoted immediately, ducking into a nearby storefront as fast as his cane would allow. A Twi’lek with a tattered shawl and dirt under her fingernails made a large arc around him on the walkway, her face carefully turned away, her shoulders hunched until she had scuttled past and out of his arm’s reach.

Cassian grimaced at the sour taste in his mouth, yanked his dark jacket a little tighter around his shoulders, and walked into the nearest alley.

Something dropped from the catwalk overhead, landing lightly behind him and blocking his access back to the street. Cassian stopped, but he didn’t turn around.

A light touch on his wrist made him realize that his hands were balled into fists. Another touch on the small of his back, and Cassian rolled his shoulders and forced some of the tension to relax down his spine. “I’m good,” he said a touch more roughly than was probably convincing.

“I know,” Jyn replied, and ran her palm lightly up his spine. Abruptly, she dropped her hands away from him and stepped back. Startled, Cassian turned to look at her, but she was looking intently at the wall, her face set in concentration but her eyes a little too unfocused. “He was pissing his armor by the time you let him go,” she smirked, although she didn’t quite meet his eyes, and he saw her jam her thumbs into her belt a little too hard to be totally casual. “Swear I’ve seen this before,” she murmured under her breath, staring hard at another large, blocky graffiti arrow similar to the one she had noted before. Cassian was less concerned with the vandalism than the careful way Jyn was avoiding looking at him. Had it been his act, out on the street? Had the casual cruelty in his voice grated on her as badly as it had on him?

The warmth of her hand lingered on his back and at his wrist –

His wrist. Which he had yanked from her grip, earlier.

Ah. Right.

Cassian glanced down the cramped alley, but it was empty of life and devoid of any holocams. It dead-ended into the side of another blocky blackstone apartment building to his right, and opened into a semi-bustling street on the left, with the flashy silver banners hanging low overhead in here, effectively blocking any lines of sight from above. This was, he figured, as safe a spot as he could find on Kafrene, barring their ship, and he didn’t want to wait all day to clear this misunderstanding up. Perhaps he _should_ wait, but his heart was still beating a little too fast, his adrenaline still a little too high after the encounter with the stormtrooper, and the tension around Jyn’s mouth was painful to look at. He would be off his game for the rest of the day if he didn’t handle this now.

In a way, he was being responsible.

Cassian walked slowly into Jyn’s space, watching as the distant look in her eyes sharpened and she turned to face him. “The guard station is just around the corner,” Cassian said quietly, still walking forward slow but deliberate. Jyn shuffled back instinctively, blinking in surprise when her back brushed against the heavily graffiti’d wall. He crowded in close, not touching her, giving her plenty of room to slip away on either side. “We’ll need to find a good vantage point,” he said, still speaking too low for any possible eavesdroppers to overhear but keeping his voice light and casual. “And a cover story for lingering there.”

“You could always buy me a meal,” she replied softly, her mouth tugging up on one side, the tight line of before softening into something sweet and wry, her eyes no longer distant at all. Some of the acid wash in his mouth faded, though, the slimy feeling of left by the terror in the civilians' eyes burning away under her gaze. “Maybe something to drink, while you're at it,” she mused, setting one hand gently against his chest. It did nothing to slow his heartrate back to normal, but this time he welcomed the sensation of his heart pounding under his skin, under her touch.

Cassian leaned his head down until he was almost pressing a kiss to her ear, and tried not to grin like a fool when he saw her shiver at the near-contact. “A good plan,” he agreed, and then hooked one finger in the edge of her scarf. The stars embroidered along the edge caught a little on his calloused skin as he tucked them securely back against her neck where no one could see (but he would still know they were there, his gift to her, guarded as preciously as she guarded her crystal necklace underneath). “Shall we?”

She nodded, which caused her cheek to graze briefly against his, and Cassian allowed himself one quick smile, hidden from the world by her body and the dim light of the alley, and then he straightened both his expression and his body. “Then let’s go,” he held out his hand, palm up, and she raised an eyebrow at his clear reference to the first time they had met, in another alley on another world, another offer he was forever grateful he had been brave enough to make. Another request he was forever grateful she had granted.

“Yeah,” Jyn shook her head but her mouth curved into a quiet smile as she slipped her hand into his. “Let’s go and see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Alliance discovered the connection between Imperial weapons development and kyber via a reporter for the HoloNet News named [Calliope Drouth](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Calliope_Drouth). I just wanted to throw a little nod to that.
> 
> Kafrene, accordingly so some canon sources, can be reconfigured to match the necessary settings on the giant drill that is constantly boring into the planetoids that the city is built into. Miners who work the drill use the “high paths” to get around because those don’t change, but the rest of the city, especially the outer rings, move all the time. The naming conventions and the exact mechanics of the city's reconfiguration are products of my feverish imagination.
> 
>  _los vientos fríos matan a los incautos, soldado._ = _Cold winds kill the unwary, soldier._ I headcanon that Cassian didn't join the Alliance when he was six, but he did join the _rebellion_ , probably fighting under an old, lingering Separatist cell on Fest that later became either a part of the Alliance or, well, became extinct as the planet was put under heavier and heavier Imperial control. His first field commanders, therefore, would have been Festian. 
> 
> SIDS = Stormtrooper Identification System, a completely made up personnel tracker, based loosely on the American military's DEERS. Not having your DEERS paperwork in order is a pretty serious offense, and I don't imagine the Empire would be much more forgiving.


	3. Day 3: Tactical Risk Assessment, Section I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only half a chapter, really, but I needed to get this necessary but difficult bit out there so I can move on with the plot. Sorry for the delay, and here's hoping I can pick up the pace now that real life has settled a bit again.
> 
> Warning: while I tried to make this accessible to someone who has not read the previous work, this chapter has some references that will really only fully make sense if you have read 'you give me something,' specifically Chapter 14.

 

**[onboard the _Malta_ , Lumina Port, The Steel Ring, Resh District]**

 

“Qusongite.”

Cassian opened his eyes. The overhead light was off, but the ceiling of the cabin was still painted with a dull yellow glow, reflections from the security screens stuck in Kafrene’s perpetual false-daylight. He registered three things in very quick succession: his morning alarm was six minutes from the set wake up time, he had slept an entire six hours without waking up once, and Jyn was curled up against his side with her hands tucked under her chin and her forehead pressed against his shoulder. He had curled his right hand around her knee at some point and was pinning it to his hip. He blinked, cleared the morning fog from his mind, and forced himself to let go of her.

“You want to start there today?” He tensed, meaning to sit up.

Jyn’s hand settled on his chest, so light she was barely touching him. Cassian stopped, and craned his neck to look at her. “Still a few minutes,” she said quietly, in the slow, pared down way she spoke when she asked for something, when she wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask.

Cassian glanced at the chrono, although he didn’t need to. Jyn didn’t meet his eyes, her face still half turned into the pillow and her expression perfectly neutral. _We have,_ she whispered in the back of his memory, soft and golden above him in the morning light, _a little time._

When Cassian was seventeen, Draven sent him through a wilderness survival course, designed to teach him the basics of surviving in “hostile wilderness environs.” Cassian was a little hazy on some of the details of that course these days – most of his work involved Imperial bases, cities, and ports, and when he wanted surveillance of a remote Imperial outpost, he broke into a database and stole it. He did recall, however, the very first speech the instructor had given his class. The burly Quarren had thrown a newly slain Ganlihk Ripper, two meters of slick black scales and massive talons, into the middle of the assembled rebel troops, and bellowed, “Every morning, the Ludos wakes up and knows that it must run through the trees to escape the claws of the Ganlihk Ripper, or it will be eaten. Every morning, the Ripper wakes up and knows that it must run faster than the Ludos, or it will starve.” Some of the other soldiers had shifted their weight, muttered under their breaths to one another. Cassian had stood in the back and looked at the thick purple blood oozing from the dead animal’s slack mouth, and said nothing. “First rule of rebel survival in a hostile environment,” the instructor boomed. “Whatever creature you are,” the instructor growled, “when the sun comes up, _you better be running.”_

 It had all been very dramatic and a bit unnecessary, in Cassian’s opinion. At that moment, however, he had felt a bit of a…kinship, perhaps was the word, a kinship with the dead creature, one that he couldn’t explain and had no desire to investigate further. All he had allowed himself to think at the time was: the Ripper spent it’s life running to survive, and here it was, dead anyway.

Jyn’s hand stayed the same tentative distance from his chest, but she spread her fingers slightly, covering his heart.

Cassian relaxed, let his head fall back to the pillow, and then as casually as he could, reached down and rested his hand on her knee.

“A few more,” he agreed.

Jyn’s hand settled on his chest, her arm a warm weight across him, her breath even against his shoulder.

“Qusongite station,” she repeated. “The security guard.”

Cassian took a deep breath, stretched his spine out as far as he could manage. The bunk was just long enough that he could do so without smacking his head on the bulkhead above him, but the tips of his toes and the ends of his hair both brushed against the metal on either end of the bunk. The stretch felt amazing, though, working out the small knots and kinks in his muscles.

“She’s our best option,” Jyn said, and Cassian loved her for it, because he knew she was only saying it so he wouldn’t have to.

He nodded, ran his thumb across the curve of her knee. Two days ago, they had perched on a high balcony and watched one of the security guards sneak quietly out through the side gate of Security Station Qusongite in the Gold Ring. The Human woman had only taken a few steps into the side alley where the Imperials threw their trash for the locals to clean up, and met another Human woman with bright green hair who slipped her a small box and a quick grin before fleeing out the back of the alley.

 _Iron Ring tattoos on both,_ Jyn had told him under her breath. _Insurgent cell?_ She squinted as the security guard glanced around the alley and then tugged the top of the box open, peering inside. _Bomb?_

For a moment, Cassian had almost considered it, and then a peculiar combination of humor and despair surged through him as the guard pulled a dumpling from the box and sniffed it appreciatively. _Lunchbox_ , he murmured, and saw a reflection of his thoughts in Jyn’s eyes as she registered the tattoo on the guard’s right hand that perfectly matched a tattoo on the green-haired woman’s left hand. _Married._

The guard had smiled at her gift, tucked it quickly under her arm, and vanished into the Security Station. Yesterday, the spouse had dropped off yet another packaged meal, and the guard had lingered a few moments longer, speaking quietly to her. Flirting, judging by the grins on both their faces. Happy. After the guard went inside, Cassian had said the words neither of them wanted to say, forcing them over his tongue like ground glass.

 _We can use that_.

Jyn had nodded, and they left without further words.

It was an odd sensation, Cassian mused in the dim yellow light of their cabin; before Jyn (before Jedha, before everything) he would have simply noted the exploitable weakness, shoved any sensation of bitterness into the back of his mind, and worked on his plan to infiltrate the station. Now, somehow, it felt both better and worse to consider that he was the kind of man who looked at a happy couple and hoped to use them to his own dangerous ends. Worse, because now he looked at the smiling guard and the bitterness surged up, refusing to collapse obediently back down and out of his way. Better, because alongside the bitterness, there was something quiet and fragile but nonetheless real that recalled the smirk on Jyn’s face when she made a terrible joke and traced her fingertips over his body, that remembered what her face looked like when she shuddered and came against him, that small burning light inside him that looked at the happy couple, and recognized, and _wanted._

There was a part of him that remembered standing in the crashed ship of a murdered family and confessing a monstrous crime to someone who listened solemnly and then told him she was glad he survived it. Glad he was alive.

“If there’s any time,” Jyn murmured against his shoulder now, her fingers fiddling idly with his shirt over his heart, “I want to look at that symbol we saw on the wall again. I think I spotted another in the Copper Ring yesterday. I’ll check it out while you’re working.” While he was shadowing the guard home, she meant, scouting for the opening he needed to use her and then dump her on the Empire’s mercy.

Cassian rolled over, and pinned Jyn to the bunk mattress. She froze, and he waited, keeping his muscles relaxed and his hands still on her shoulders. It only took a moment for her to exhale slowly and curve her body to fit his. She opened her mouth to speak, looked at his face for a moment, and then closed it again, preferring to lean up and press her lips to his throat.

He bent his head and let his forehead rest on the hard pillow by her ear, let himself feel her hands winding into the back of his shirt and her heartbeat against his chest. He did not let himself dwell on the way she shifted her legs to let him settle more comfortably between, nor the warmth and press of her body against his. He wanted to - a strange and unfamiliar piece of him that he had put no small amount of effort into ignoring for a long time but now came alive with a vengeance, that part of him that craved the contact - yes, he wanted to pay attention to the exact way her body slotted perfectly against his.

But there was work to do, and lives hung in the balance. So Cassian curled down into Jyn’s warmth for one breath, another, and then pushed himself up and rolled off the bunk. His boots and overshirt were stacked neatly in the drawer by the end of the bunk, and he pulled them on swiftly and efficiently. He paused only when Jyn’s hand trailed softly across his back, and threw her an apologetic smile as she sat up next to him and reached for her own gear.

She hummed quietly, acknowledgement and understanding, and clipped her belt on tightly. Cassian stood up first and grabbed his heavy leather jacket from the hook overhead. He shouldered it on, careful not to hit Jyn with his elbow as she also rose and stepped close to grab her own coat and the dark embroidered scarf that hung underneath it. Some of the bitterness still on the back of his tongue dissipated slightly as he glanced at the smattering of stars around the hem of the scarf, watching Jyn’s deft hands tuck them out of sight beneath her collar. He reached to adjust the last of his gear and wondered if he should pick up a vial of lotion while they were out today. The air on Kafrene was heavily recycled and tended to be extremely dry for a Human, and Jyn’s scarred knuckles tended to crack when too dry, years of scars and callouses tugging at the skin in between and splitting it painfully.

Abruptly, Jyn’s fingers stilled, and Cassian’s head jerked to the monitors immediately, scanning for whatever had startled her. A local hangar mechanic strolled lazily through the nearby gate, waving his access badge at the pair of stormtroopers stationed there, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He frowned, turned back to look at Jyn.

She was staring at his…neck? No, his hands, though when he lowered them slowly, her gaze didn’t follow. Instead, she turned to look up at his face, and there was something dark in her eyes that he didn’t like, something that crawled up his spine and made his muscles tense. “Jyn?” Tentatively, he reached for her shoulder, settling his fingertips gingerly on the thick black leather of her jacket. “What - ?”

Her jaw tightened, and then she looked deliberately from his face, to his collar, and back to meet his eyes.

Ah.

Instinctively, he pulled his hand back from her shoulder and touched his collar, his fingertip catching slightly on the concealed pocket under the edge. The small, innocuous lump of the Lullaby pressed back on his skin.

His memories of the trip from Jedha back to Yavin were a little…grey around the edges. The weakness and nausea caused by the small amount of potassium cyanide in his system had soured most of those hours for him. But he remembered the moment he had chosen to pull it from his collar and hold it carefully between his teeth, the bitter flavor already bleeding across his tongue as his heart thundered and his mind screamed. He remembered the moment he had looked at Jyn’s eyes through the scope of his rifle and she had fucking nodded to him like he was doing her some kind of favor, and telling himself that at last he had found the end of his rope, the evil that he could still commit but not survive. He remembered the moment he decided to die with Jyn Erso’s blood on his hands with exquisite clarity.

Judging by the expression on her face, so did she.

Jyn’s mouth tightened, and for the first time, the yellow light of Kafrene seemed to turn her sallow and ashen, just as beat down and tired as the workers who trudged to and from the Empire-owned mine in slow, broken herds every day.

A thousand responses filtered through Cassian’s mind – _you know this is the safer choice, it’s Rebel Intelligence policy for a reason, it isn't like I resort to using it at the first sign of trouble, I’m a high-ranking operative and I know too much, I've done too much, the Alliance depends on my silence, I’d rather die than be tortured, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ – but he said none of them. She knew them all already, and it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t make the shadow in her eyes or the clench of her fists any less painful for either of them.

Instead, Cassian reached behind her, for the small metal box that she kept snapped to the wall and as far from the bunk as possible. The move brought him closer to her, too close for comfortable eye contact, and as Cassian raised his gaze to locate the box, Jyn dropped hers and pressed her forehead against his shoulder. She didn’t reach up to hold him, though, her arms stubbornly down at her sides, although he didn’t know if that was meant to punish him or protect herself. Maybe a little bit of both. Maybe neither. Maybe even she didn’t know.

He flipped open the latch on the box and reached inside, hunting blind for what he knew was in there. It wasn’t hard; he’d been using this kit for a long time, after all. He found what he was looking for and pulled it out, locking the box and tucking it away.

Jyn sniffed.

It was a tiny sound, and it happened so quickly that he barely caught it, but it tore through him anyway and for a brief moment he almost opened his hand and dropped what he held, almost wrapped his arms around her shoulders and allowed the apology that wedged like a stone in the back of his throat spill out.

But he didn’t.

Jyn leaned back from him the same moment that he leaned back from her. He scrutinized her face, but if she was a little paler than usual, if her eyes were any more red than could be blamed on the unflattering light, he couldn't tell. She simply looked tired, her shoulders perhaps a little more rigid than before. Another mark in his file, another necessary task done for the sake of the rebellion, another thing he regretted but would do again tomorrow if he had to. If she even gave him the chance. Another thing he was willing to do right now, no matter how it ate at his insides like acid, like  potassium cyanide and the lines he could and couldn't cross.

Cassian waited until she looked up to meet his eye again before holding up his hand between them.

Jyn plucked the little red pill from his palm and tucked it into the small, hidden compartment on her jacket, just under her collar.

Less than a handspan to the left, a single embroidered star gleamed at her throat against a dark blue background. Cassian stared at it as the red pill vanished from sight and Jyn dropped her hand.

“Time’s up,” she said in a quiet voice. “We better go.”

He nodded, turned on his heel, and led her off the ship and out into the harsh light of the Imperial city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Qusongite](http://webmineral.com/data/Qusongite.shtml#.W3iJ9uhKiUk) is a real mineral. Yes, I'm keeping to the theme, so all the security stations on Kafrene are named for minerals, and the more "wealthy" the Ring on which a guard station is located (for example, Gold Ring), the more rare the mineral used for naming the station (Iron Ring's pitiful two guard stations are named Security Stations Quartz and Flint. This is completely irrelevant to the story, I just like imagining what Kafrene might have been like.)
> 
> I've always been annoyed at my instructors that used the [Lion and Gazelle parable](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/05/lion-gazelle/) because it feels super overdramatic and a bit like an 80s drama about stock brokers, but it's so friggin common that I can't imagine a military survival instructor who _doesn't_ use it. So it shows up in Cassian's training, too.
> 
> On that note, a [Ganlihk Ripper](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ganlihk_ripper) is some kind of creature from the planet Ganlihk that is never properly described anywhere I can find, but does in fact like to eat Ludos. [Ludos](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ludos) are apparently brain octopuses that dwell in trees, and maybe aren't that fast moving, but for the purposes of this story, are in indeed quick little buggers that evade the Rippers via running through the tree branches on their many tentacles. Feel free to imagine this scenario in any way you please.


	4. Day 3: Tactical Risk Assessment, Section 2

**[Evir N’halo Market, The Copper Ring, Resh District]**

The mine, it turned out, had vented a huge plume of gritty, noxious gases during their sleep cycle, and everything from the Iron Ring to the Silver was coated in a thin film of black grime that smelled vaguely of ammonia. Jyn shot him a worried glance when they walked through the main gate of Lumina Port into the Copper Ring and found flashing warning signs all over the public notice boards, informing citizens to keep “sensitive members” of their species indoors or fitted with breathers. But Cassian had seen the note buried in the cultural brief; this sort of thing happened all the time. Never anywhere near the central rings, of course, but out here among the ever-changing alleys and ramshackle homes of the lower classes, it was nothing unusual. Everyone just jammed their cheap rebreathers on their babies (save for the ammonia-breathing species, who already had them on all the time anyway), and carried on. Jyn scowled when he explained it to her, but the nervous tension in her shoulders dropped back into a more normal wariness.

“I can’t fight the air,” she told him under her breath when she noticed him looking.

Cassian couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow and letting fake surprise color his voice. “Can’t you?”

She knocked his arm with her elbow, rolling her eyes and turning her gaze back to the crowded streets around them. He tried not to feel too relieved that she wasn’t angry with him for this morning.

They moved quickly through the crowds, and Cassian had to admit to himself that they were getting better at it. In Jedha, he’d nearly lost her a dozen times in the crushing tides of pilgrims and locals all shoving their way around the organically-built streets of that ancient city. Here, the streets were nearly as illogical and just as narrow, but Jyn only had to duck around a self-absorbed pedestrian twice, Cassian only had to grab her and pull her in close to his body to keep them together once. There was no need to throw his arm around her, no need for her to latch on to his hand. They were getting better.

That was a good thing. More efficient. Safer. Smarter.

He was a secret field operative for a paramilitary rebel organization with twenty years of experience in urban warfare, both open and underground. He didn’t  _need_  to hold someone’s hand.

The gritty air stirred around them, a swirl of black stone dust and a whiff of ammonia brushing his face as he dodged around a particularly fierce-looking Wookiee who strode through the crowd without concern for who or what had to scramble out of his path. Cassian grit his teeth until Jyn reappeared on the other side of the Wookiee, her lips tight until she saw him. Her shoulder brushed his as they fell back into step. Cassian glanced up at the copper banners swaying in the faint, crowd-generated breeze and jammed his hands into his pockets. He should pick up some gloves. The recycled air in these poorer Rings was cold.

Jyn grabbed his wrist.

Immediately, Cassian pulled his hand from his jacket pocket and twisted his arm until her grip shifted and caught in his fingers. He fitted their hands neatly together before anyone could walk between them. Never let it be said, he thought with a grim smile, that he couldn’t learn from his mistakes.

Jyn didn’t smile back, however, her attention focused on something down a street that curved away back into the Copper Ring. Cassian let her tow him into the side street, out of the main flow of traffic. The street curved sharply left and became somehow even more narrow, and the black buildings on either side turned nearly phosphorescent with colorful graffiti.

He followed without protest when she ducked under an Overpass that was half-hidden in ominous shadows. The Overpasses were permanent roads that hovered over the city, radiating out from the center on both the Resh and the Osk sides like spokes on a wheel and unaffected by the constant shifting of all the Rings beneath. They were mostly for the miners, an efficient means to get to work on time without the excuse of shifting Rings and ‘trooper patrols. It wouldn’t do, Cassian had muttered to Jyn when they first arrived and saw the Overpasses arching overhead, for profits to be affected by busy roads. This Overpass hummed above them like a live powerline and shuddered under the boots of hundreds of miners headed to their next shift in the great Central Drill. The small, dark spot she had chosen was littered with trash and biohazard debris. A few sentients in ragged clothing huddled around a crackling green fire nearby. Jyn swept them with a brief, assessing look, then stepped in close to Cassian, pushing him back near the wall and resting her hands on his hips. “The red banner on the left,” she said quietly, her lips brushing his ear.

Cassian leaned against the graffiti-covered wall under the Overpass and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his mouth to her neck and casually glancing down the street through his eyelashes. Jyn’s breath hitched against his ear, but Cassian felt absolutely no remorse for that. She had started it, after all.

The red banner was easy enough to pick out among the copper banners, but underneath the customary Imperial crest, it was embroidered with a blue and yellow trio of gears all turning against one another. Underneath the banner, one of the doors in the black building was open, and a Human male sat in a folding chair next to a poorly made sign that said “New Hires Welcome.” Underneath those words, someone had scrawled in a sloppy hand, “Snacks inside for Human and Others too!!”

“The welcome kit,” Jyn whispered against his ear. Her hands slid from his hips up to the back of his belt, and she anchored her fingers around the thick leather, save for her thumb, which he could feel tracing in a small circle against his back.

Cassian checked the drifters around the trashcan fire, but none of them were looking his way. “What?”

Jyn huffed, a sound of annoyance, but he felt the admonition was undermined a little by the way her breath ghosted across the side of his neck. “The welcome kit, from the brief? New miners get a kit with,” she paused, shook her head slightly as she hunted for her derailed train of thought. Cassian smiled and ran his hand up and down her spine again. By the door under the red banner, the male (older, grey beard and shirt collar starched so heavily that it must be his only good one, the only one he never wore in the mines and probably only unwrapped for these welcoming events) stretched out his legs and shifted wearily in the chair. No one else seemed to be going in or out of the open door, and apparently hadn’t done so for awhile.

“A kit,” Jyn started again determinedly, only just barely arching against his hand. “With their new work schedule, dress code, regulations, maps, that kind of shit.”

Cassian hummed in recognition. He had read that part of the brief too, but he didn’t see what any of it had to do with their mission. They didn’t need miner’s shift schedules, and whatever draconian regulations the workers here labored under were probably infuriating but ultimately not something he could do anything about. Not directly, anyway.

Still, he didn’t mind the short detour. His target wouldn’t leave the security station for another hour, at least, and Jyn's lips brushing the shell of his ear was....he'd endured worse things.

“Cassian,” Jyn grumbled, and he shivered at the sound of his name spoken out loud in an Imperial city. (At the sound of his name whispered against his skin.) “ _Maps_  and  _schedules_.” Her hands tightened on his belt, tugging his body closer to hers, and Cassian pressed his mouth a little harder against the curve of her neck and swept another glance around the Overpass shelter. A Rodian by the fire gave him a thumbs up, and then turned her attention away. The thin crowds on the side street carried on, oblivious. The man under the red banner yawned.

Abruptly, he understood what she was trying to say. Miners used the Overpasses to get around, but when they arrived they still received a copy of the streets and neighborhoods in the city, which meant –

“Ring schedules,” he murmured. A new hire would get an up-to-date detailed schedule of when the various Rings would move, and how they would line up again. After all, it was the Drill that determined those movements, and miners needed to know which part of the Drill they were assigned to work, which meant they needed to know where that particular part would be on any given day.

It would be useful data, but walking up and asking for a map from what was clearly an official Imperial representative would be far too dangerous. They would need scandocs, a whole identity built around a person who didn’t exist, or else he would have to waylay someone who was actually a new hire and take their place – a complicated business at best, a horrible crime at worst. He always preferred creating new people rather than assuming someone else’s skin. Less blood, fewer nightmares.

“I could do it,” Jyn said firmly, and Cassian realized that he had tightened his hold on her, all but clutching her to his chest as he stared at the swaying red banner. “I’ve got a shell ident already set up. I’d just need the name of someone who hasn’t checked in yet.”

Cassian lifted his head to look at her, his jaw tight.

“The miners work for Romodi Industries,” Jyn said, her voice brisk and impersonal but her hands moving from his belt to his back as he tensed at the name. “I can get into their Kafrene database in ten minutes. We get the name, adjust my scandocs, get in, get the kit, get out. Whole thing will take maybe an hour, standard.”

“Romodi Industries has a lot of Imperial contracts,” Cassian said at last around the hard lump in his throat. He swallowed, scanned the space for threats, then buried his face against the curve of her neck, just in case anyone was watching. It also conveniently hid his mouth from any potential lip readers as he spoke of treason. "Breaching their systems is legally the same as breaching a government database.”

Jyn’s hands dug into his back, her body curving to fit against his, but now it felt more comforting than provoking. “I won’t trigger an ISB investigation.” She smiled against his cheek, and Cassian closed his eyes. “Promise.”

“It’s not worth it.” He straightened, keeping his arms around her and his body language as relaxed as he could manage in case anyone was watching, but he shook his head when she pulled back to look at him. “We’ll navigate the Rings without it.”

Jyn scowled. “If we have to run for it,” she shot back, “then not knowing the Rings could be a huge disadvantage. Might get us trapped.” She turned her face away from the sentients around the fire so she could frown at him properly without anyone seeing. “Might get us caught.”

He hesitated, because she had a point. A damn good point. The Ring shifts weren’t published anywhere on the holonet, and it was illegal to distribute them outside of the miners themselves. This would be his best chance at getting a hold of the schedule, which would drastically improve their ability to get around the city, and to run from threats.

An hour of risk for what might be a huge payoff on the rest of the mission.

“Get me someone who doesn’t speak Basic as a first language,” he said at last. “If anything happens, I can play the ignorant Outer Rim immigrant who misunderstood my reporting instructions.”

Jyn’s face stayed perfectly calm, but her hands tightened on his back, her breathing stuttered slightly against his chest. If he hadn’t been so close, he might have missed the subtle reaction. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she sighed.

“I sliced the database this morning while you were in the ‘fresher,” she confessed. “I’ve already got the scandocs.” She shuffled in his grasp, tossing a glance over her shoulder at the people by the fire, and pulled a small holographic card from her pocket.  _Berilyn_   _Sado_ , the card read over a shimmering picture of Jyn’s bland, expressionless face.  _Age: 27 standard / Howeworld: Tattooine / Language: Boche (pri), Hutt (sec), Basic (ter)._

“Manifests on Tattooine said her ship got delayed,” Jyn said quietly, her body very still in his arms and her eyes locked on his face. “She probably won’t show up until tomorrow.”

He was either going to kiss the hells out of her or drag her back to their ship and run like a Star Destroyer was bearing down on them. Maybe both.

Cassian took a deep breath. “You should have told me,” he said flatly.

Jyn’s eyes scanned his face, hunting for…for what? Anger? Rejection? Her shoulders were hunched slightly, her feet planted against the cracked duracrete beneath them. She hadn’t moved further away, still within the loose circle of his arms, but somehow a gulf had opened between them, and Jyn looked like she balanced on the sharp edge over the void, watching him. Waiting for his reaction.

Cassian hadn’t seen her braced like that against him since Jedha, when he had ordered her to work around a checkpoint rather than go straight through it, like she wanted.  _Where will you be?_  she had snapped, and then to his surprise, her jaw had set and her shoulders had tightened; she’d all but ducked and waited for a blow to the shoulder or chest. As if she expected him to lash out at her for questioning his orders, as if she thought he would ever raise his hand against her at all. Even then, with so little else to go on but one night in his hotel room and a name he wasn’t sure was really hers, the thought that she was afraid of him had bothered Cassian.

Now, it sickened him.

“Thirty minutes,” he said into the silence between them, and tugged on her gently until she leaned forward again. He set his chin on the top of her head (so easy for her to jerk upwards and snap his head back that way, his pulse right next to her teeth) and braced his feet on either side of hers (a clear shot to his groin or gut with her knee). “Thirty minutes, and then I’m coming in there to get you.”

He felt her turning to look down at the sliver of distance still between them, knew she registered all the vulnerabilities he deliberately left open to her, wondered if she understood what he was trying to tell her.

“An hour,” she said at last, and then relaxed against him, her hands loose on his belt again, her weight on his chest enough that if he moved away she would stagger. He checked the sentients by the fire – one of them had shuffled to the side and was relieving himself on the Overpass struts, the rest firmly ignored the intruders in their grimy haven – and then he let himself lean back a little.

“Forty minutes.”

“No,” Jyn eased back to her feet and finally stepped out of his arms. “It will take an hour, if everything goes smoothly. There isn’t time to do this and catch the sec – catch our mark in Gold Ring. I’ll do this, and you go on ahead. I’ll catch up.” She held up a hand as Cassian opened his mouth to refuse. “What’s the point of a partner if they can’t split the workload?”

“What’s the point of a partner,” he shot back, eyes narrow, “if they don’t watch your back?”

Her face flushed. Not bright red, Jyn didn’t really blush where others could see, but there was a faint redness to her cheeks visible to someone who knew where to look. “I’ll be fine,” she said at last. “And you have forty minutes to get across the Ring.”

The hell of it was, she was right. A map and schedule of the ever-changing city was not required to complete this mission, but it would make things significantly easier and safer not only for them, but for whatever Alliance operative who passed through here in the next six months. Maybe even a year, if Jyn got lucky and they gave her the next two map cycles in advance. At the same time, the security guard was still the best option for their primary mission, and he couldn’t afford to waste time not following that lead.

“If we get recalled,” Jyn murmured, reaching to adjust her shirt under her jacket where he had pulled it askew, “this could help the next guy, too.”

He sighed. It was startling, sometimes, how her thoughts dovetailed with his. “Inefficient to send us away just to have someone else take our place,” he grumbled.

Jyn’s mouth quirked at the corner, a silent agreement, and then she shrugged. “Yeah, but they still might.”

“One hour,” Cassian conceded, and reached up to run a hand through his hair, making a point of tapping his thumb against his hidden earpiece as he did so. From her angle, Jyn could see his thumb, but the people by the fire could not. “If I don’t hear from you then…”

Jyn nodded. “One hour,” she said solemnly.

She darted forward, pressed a hard kiss to his mouth, and darted away again, reaching to tug her jacket collar up against her throat as she strode briskly out from under the Overpass.

Cassian stayed where he was, leaning against the cold wall as the Overpass buzzed above him, and watched her walk up to the startled old man by the red banner. The man shuffled to his feet and barely glanced at her scandocs, reaching to shake her hand warmly and gesture for her to go inside. She said something that made him crack a cheerful grin, and then vanished through the door without a backwards glance. The red banner fluttered slightly in the ammonia-scented air, the Imperial crest crinkling then straightening again over the old man, who settled back in his chair with a wince and a quick rub of his creaky legs.

On the wall next to Cassian's shoulder, someone had spray-painted  _Welkom 2 Kafrene - where good dreams go bad_  in a drippy neon green. Under it, a complex pattern in neat red paint bent and twisted into an arrow that pointed down the street.

A few blocks over, he heard the harsh ringing of the shift alarms, the screech of the metal connector ring lifting. The people around the fire jumped up, one of them dumping a bucket of sand into the trashcan to stifle the flames. A moment later, the ground rumbled, and the street twisted. The Overpass seemed to glide away - although this was nonsense, the Copper Ring was turning, and the Overpass was staying in place, but it made him nauseous if he thought too hard about it, so he didn’t. The ragged people nearby scattered, shuffling off into the thin crowds, and the old man under the banner reached out and braced himself against the battered sign by the door.

At last, the Ring stopped moving. The alarms wailed a moment longer, and then went silent. Cassian looked to his right and saw a whole new set of streets winding off into the shadows, illuminated only by Kafrene’s ever-present yellowish lights. Above the new streets and alleys, the dark Drill shaft towered, locking this half of the city with the other, orienting him as much as possible without a map, or Jyn.

The old man leaned back in his chair under the Imperial banner and closed his eyes, half asleep already from the look of it.

If Cassian waited any longer, he would miss his chance with the security guard. Jyn would be…

Jyn would be fine.

He had to move, quickly.

Cassian shoved himself away from the wall, threw one last glance at the open door that had swallowed his partner, and vanished into the uneasy shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pulled the “where good dreams go bad” graffiti straight from the Ring of Kafrene wookiepedia page, which describes Kafrene as a labyrinthine graffiti-covered slum for the most part. It’s very much a cyberpunk dystopia under the Empire, and I tried to convey that in the things that Cassian notes about the world around him. However, I didn’t have him dwell on any of it, because in my opinion, this is exactly the kind of place where Cassian has spent the majority of his time as an Alliance spy. Dirty, dark, dangerous, and full of people trudging through their lives with the flag of Empire waving overhead – this is where Captain Cassian Andor lives, hides, steals, lies, and kills when he must.
> 
> Romodi Industries is a fake corporation I invented for the purposes of this story, but Hurst Romodi, the man I imagine running that particular personal empire, is a canon character who shows up in both Rogue One (the aide to Wilhuff Tarkin, the one telling him Krennic is on Scarif, etc) AND he’s also in the original A New Hope, in that conference scene where Vader chokes the guy who’s all excited about the Death Star’s Ultimate Power. Romodi fought in the Clone Wars, was apparently very highly favored by the Emperor, and had originally retired but come back into Imperial service when Tarkin asked his old buddy Hurst to be part of his command staff onboard the Death Star. I headcanon that Rebel Intel has a file ten miles long on Romodi and his exploits as an Imperial commander. Cassian has a list just as long of all the people who died in the Pacification of the Western Reaches.


	5. Day 4: Establishing The Objective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has explicit angst in the first half, and explicit sex in the second half.

**[Siever Lhin Shopping Complex, The Silver Ring, Resh District]**

It wasn’t Cassian Andor who stalked through Kafrene’s narrow alleys and neon-spackled shadows. Cassian Andor was good at being unseen and unremembered, a trait that all his personas and aliases shared. Joreth Sward, Keda Sartori, Cassein Willix, Armand Salvor, Aach, all of them excellent at walking soft, speaking softer, and gifted at the art of fading from memory. But Fulcrum, Fulcrum was a Force-damned  _master_  of it, and it was Fulcrum who slipped through the edges of the late-night crowds. It was Fulcrum, shrugged over Cassian Andor like a heavy, hooded coat, who slipped along the edges of noisy streets with the stock of his hidden blaster digging into his ribs. It was Fulcrum at work in the Silver Ring that night, his expression out of focus and unremarkable save for his eyes roving restlessly through the sea of backlit faces.

It was Fulcrum who paced unremarkable and unknown a few meters behind the oblivious Security Officer (Second Class) La Kai Yunas, watching as she shouldered her way through the bustle. Her Imperial uniform won her a small breathing space, but the lack of any visible weapons and the tired slump of her shoulders broadcast to the world that she was off-duty. Fulcrum followed her through a checkpoint, flashing his miner’s credentials at the checkpoint guards with the same bored, mindless frown of every other weary commuter coming off first night shift. The ‘troopers never glanced twice at him. ‘Troopers never saw Fulcrum; they saw Sward and Willix and half a dozen others, usually because he needed them to be seen, but Fulcrum was nothing and no one. Just another face in the snarling, shouting, droning crowd.

It was quiet, though, inside Fulcrum’s head; the world observed, registered, labelled, and then filtered out. Zabrak pickpocket in an alley, watching him with deep purple eyes, young, hungry, but not desperate - low threat. (Gangs on Kafrene were small and uncoordinated,the high Imperial Army presence a constant boot on their neck; small time smugglers might help the rebels but not much.) Surging crowds all around him, possible attacker hidden within - medium threat. (Blaster shot into the air would cause a stampede; in these narrow spaces, no foot patrols would be able to get through.) Stormtroopers in the suspended catwalks over the street - low threat from that distance. Reassess if they come down. (One X Wing could blast through these narrow streets and take out most of those catwalks with a single stream of pulse fire; loss of civilian-free paths would significantly slow and confuse Imperial troops movements through this whole Ring.) Plumes of smoke billowed from a nearby grate, faint smell of ammonia, the people nearby covered their children’s faces but did not run – low threat. (Drop a grenade down that vent, the gases would catch and magnify the explosion. This was a major commercial area on Kafrene; the economy would suffer if it went up.)

Mark the threats. Mark the weaknesses.

Thirty paces ahead, Security Officer Yunas straightened her uniform jacket. Minor wrinkles around the armpits and waist indicated wear, lines around her eyes indicated weariness. End of her shift. Tired. Off her guard.

Mark the weakness.

She pushed into a large shopping complex, nodding vaguely to the Andulian who scurried to clear her path. Andulian avoided eye contact, kept their head bowed, waited until the Imperial uniform cleared away from them before bolting off into the crowd. Yunas glanced back over her shoulder to watch the Andulian run, her mouth grim.

Fulcrum took note. Displeased with the reaction of civilians to her uniform. Troubled by it. A display of moral concern.

Mark.

The shopping complex was a startling contrast to the city outside, high ceilings, wide corridors between brightly-lit shops stacked seven stories high. The uniformly white fluorescent lighting seemed to fill every corner of the space, a powerful delineation from the shadowy, multicolored night outside. The crowds were just as large but better spaced, and better dressed – low threat. Security stations every fifty meters – medium threat. Officer Yunas straightened as she walked past the nearest security checkpoint, raised her hand (and coincidentally, the rank indicator on her sleeve cuff) towards the Security Officer on duty. He flicked a lazy salute her way but did not smile or fully meet her eyes. An acknowledgement of the uniform, not the person. Not her friend. Wouldn’t pay attention to her or anyone who spoke to her as she moved through the complex. Low threat.

Yunas slumped again when she moved out of the on-duty officer’s line of sight. She reached up and discreetly checked that her dark hair was still neatly tucked away in a tight bun. Nervous about her appearance around other Imperial officers.

Mark.

“Mama!”

A small Human child - three or four years old, green hair, pink dress – raced through a gap in the crowd. Yunas turned. The child careened into Yunas’ legs, smacking so hard the woman staggered.

The child blinked, looked up at the uniformed Imperial who looked down at her, eyebrows raised.

A nearby Twi’lek caught sight of the crash and tensed, her mouth pinching in fear.

“Mama!” The little girl laughed, and held up her arms.

“Hi, baby,” Yunas leaned down and picked up the child. “What did we say about running in the shops?”

“Um….” The little girl shook her head, making her green braids fly around her head. “Dunno.”

The Twi’lek’s mouth relaxed, and she hurried off into the nearest shop. Another woman approached - Human, green hair, tattoo on her hand. Security Officer Yunas’ spouse. The child she towed along by one hand was seven to nine years old, rail-thin, dark hair like Yunas but paler skinned like his other parent. “I told her not to run away like that,” the boy said petulantly.

“Kiri,  _no_ ,” the spouse scolded. “We said  _no_  to running through crowds without Mama or Mommy holding our hand, remember?”

The little girl stuck out her lower lip and put her head down on Yunas’ shoulder. “I wanted Mama,” she said defiantly.

“Don’t pull the cute card on me, kid,” the spouse narrowed her eyes. “I’m your Mommy. I’m immune.”

“Sure you are,” Yunas said softly, the tired tension lines in her face starting to fade. She put her hand gently over the little girl’s head, stroking the green braids. The child giggled and wrinkled her nose as the Imperial Security Officer’s sleeve cuff brushed against her face, the stitched silver rank on the cuff scraping the tip of her baby nose. The boy shuffled close and hugged his mother as well, though he wrinkled his nose for an entirely different reason when she leaned down and kissed his head.

_“Make it look like an accident, shadow man,” Guli told him, pouring a shot of cheap whiskey and setting it on top of the holo that he slid across the bar. The holo was a sour-faced Imperial officer standing with a vapid-looking woman labelled as his wife, and their three solemn children between the ages of four and nine. “To your kind death,” Guli added absently as Salvor picked up the shot glass, and threw it back._

His throat went tight, his vision greyed around the edges. He suddenly felt grimy, his heavy leather coat weighted against his shoulders as Armande Salvor settled over him – or perhaps, as Salvor rose from within, from deep down in the cold, ugly places where he kept the masks, the personas, the background stories, the mannerisms and the murders. Out of a memory of twisted metal and smoldering wreckage bubbled the shadow man of  _La Brutalidad_ , staring at the holo of the family he killed to gain access to a Coruscanti gang’s data files. Salvor slicked his skin with blood and cheap whiskey, corroding the cold armor of Fulcrum, leaving him bare under the harsh white lighting of the upscale shopping center on Kafrene. It was Salvor now who looked at the little Imperial family, the green haired woman leaning up to press a comfortable kiss against the security guard’s cheek, the young boy tugging his mother’s arm to show her something in the nearby shop. It was Salvor who watched the little girl wriggling back down from her parent’s arms to run ahead excitedly, pouting when her mothers call her back sternly. It was Salvor who noted the way Security Officer Yunas relaxed her shoulders, the way her nervous tension turned to relaxed laughter. It was Salvor who looked at the Imperial’s family and thought –

_Mark._

For the first time in a month, the first time since he met her, he was suddenly glad that Jyn wasn’t here. He didn’t…he didn’t want her to be here, right now. She would look at him, with those bright, perceptive eyes, and somehow she would know what he was thinking. She would see the patina of Salvor over him, a membrane of cruelty and death, and she would flinch away from it.

He felt…sick.

No. No, Salvor was done, his work on Coruscant over and his indifferent violence unnecessary here.  _Fulcrum_ , it was Fulcrum who could do this job, Fulcrum who needed a way into a security station’s files, and killing children was not – it was  _not_  a part of this job. It was not the only way he would get what he needed.

Breathe.

He tugged the collar of his jacket, letting some of the cooled air of the climate controlled shopping center under the leather to his overheated skin. It didn't quite erase the tang of Coruscant underworld processed air, didn’t quite erase Guli’s toothy grin as he raised a whiskey for the shadow man, but it helped.

Fulcrum.

Fulcrum needed information on the only access point he had found so far to a place he needed to be. Fulcrum squared his shoulders, buried his hands in his coat pockets, and followed the target.

They passed through several clothing stores, the spouse holding up various items to the two children, occasionally against their protest, sometimes with the exasperated air of a parent too tired to argue with the garish orange-and-pink vest or the cheaply-made shoes with some popular cartoon character on them. Security Guard Yunas picked the little girl up at random intervals, though the child’s boundless energy meant that she would only make it a few minutes before she wriggled back down again.

No, wait, not random intervals – Yunas picked up the child whenever they passed a security checkpoint, or a ‘trooper patrol strolled past the shop window. Afraid to let her daughter run too close to the checkpoints, to the Stormtroopers, to the very people whose uniform she wore.

And whenever she did it, her spouse put a hand on their son’s shoulder, a brief, steadying touch, or a quick confirmation that he was still there.

Mark.

The little girl didn’t notice, of course she didn’t, protesting loudly every time Yunas swept her up from the ground and interrupted whatever energetic and nonsensical child’s game she was playing. But the boy…the boy was young enough to frown when his mother pulled him close, and old enough to keep his mouth closed. He looked at the gleaming Stormtroopers and the indifferent grey-clad security officers, and he let his parents herd him past without comment, his thin shoulders hunching in uncertain fear. The security checkpoint personnel never glanced at them, most of the security officers engrossed in their datapads or their holostreams, the ‘troopers mostly moving in neat, precise patterns around the area. Low threat. Or perhaps medium threat; there were a lot of weapons in those checkpoints. No, no, low threat. The child was reacting to his parents’ fear, and his parents were really only civilians. Security guards were not combat-grade troops, little better than local law enforcement. Civilians. He was not one of them. He didn’t operate on their scale.

When Cassian was a little younger than this boy, his father used to walk him past Republic checkpoints with his hand on Cassian’s thin shoulder.

He tried to catch the sudden errant thought, shove it back down under Fulcrum’s hardened exterior, but it was too late. Names were dangerous, memory was deadly. It was  _Cassian_  standing now in the upscale shopping center, trying his best to keep his face turned away from security cameras with his coat collar pulled close around his jaw. It was Cassian pretending to rifle through a display of cheap home appliances while he watched parents trying to steer their children around the Imperial soldiers, even here in the aggressively bland and prosperous spaces of Kafrene.

It was Cassian, looking at a little boy trying to figure out why the adults were afraid.

And it was Cassian contemplating ways to break that little boy’s family apart for his own means. Because he needed to get into that Imperial station, and in all likelihood, he needed someone to paint as a scapegoat when he left. If he got into the station, the odds were high that he would leave  _some_  trace behind. They would discover their files had been copied, or someone would notice a strange face in the security feeds,  _something_. He would have to leave a safeguard behind, falsified evidence of how he got in, or who he was connected to. If he used Yunas’ documents, her credentials, or even if he simply talked her into betraying some useful information that allowed him access, it would probably be traced back to her. Yunas would be, at best, marked as a security risk and thrown from the ranks, blacklisted and left with no means of supporting her family. At worst, the Empire would consider her a traitor and execute her. No, actually, at the very worst, they would execute her whole family.

Cassian’s coat was suddenly a hundred kilos heavier, his boots lead weights around his ankles, his spine creaking under the pressure of Fulcrum’s armor, Fulcrum’s choices. It was not, he thought with nauseating clarity, the first time. This was what Fulcrum did, these were the calls he was created to make. He would tear this little family apart, as he had torn others apart, as his own was shredded long, long ago. Because that was what this war did, wasn’t it? That’s what it had done for over twenty years now, whether the galaxy acknowledged it or not. Destroyed families, taken parents from their children, left little boys scared and uncertain. Left children like Jyn crying in the dark.

Jyn. Oh, Force,  _Jyn_. Jyn, who had watched her mother die in a field at the hands of Imperial soldiers. Jyn, whose father had been taken from her by those same soldiers.

If he destroyed this family to find what was left of hers, would she hate him for it? Or worse,  _thank_  him?

No. No, Jyn was tough, and practical, and she had nearly killed herself multiple times to save the recruits on Jedha. She had come alone through a chaotic invasion to find him, when she had no reason to trust him, let alone care about him. Jyn had let an Imperial sympathizer go, after he _saw her face,_ because she didn’t want to kill without cause. She clutched the kyber crystal around her neck in her sleep, and sometimes even called in a soft, fragile whisper for her family in the depths of her most restless dreams.

She wouldn’t thank him for killing, however indirectly, some other child’s parent.

 _Especially,_ a dark voice murmured in the back of his mind, (Salvor, or maybe it was Joreth Sward or perhaps even Cassian himself) _, especially if she’s only with you because you are the best lead to finding her own._

It was…possible.

Ahead of him, Yunas and her family stood at the counter of a kiosk set up in the middle of the wide corridor, Yunas holding up her daughter to point at the display of sweet creams and brightly-colored candy toppings. Cassian – Salvor – Sward –  _mierda, no, Fulcrum_ slipped casually into the narrow maintenance hallway branching off the main pathway, one of the few places where the light was a little less brilliant, a little more forgiving. Trash bins lined the end of the corridor, and a security camera hung crookedly from the far corner, the lens cracked and the operating light dim. This was a high-end shopping area, but it looked like management had been cutting corners. Good, it meant this was a safe place to stop, a low-threat place to rest a moment. Get his damn head on straight. Or get his masks on straight, at least.

He leaned back against the wall and watched the family around the corner, Fulcrum’s heavy armor crushing down on his bones, Salvor’s slime tainting his skin, Sward’s distant professional assessment fighting with Cassian’s stubborn refusal to give up the hope that it wasn’t…it wasn’t  _like_  that, not with Jyn, not…it wasn’t like that. He was being paranoid. Cold and calculating and paranoid. She wasn’t just using him. She was too…too honest. Too direct. Too careful with her own heart, her own trust. She wouldn’t sleep with him just to get a chance to look for a father she claimed to think of as dead. It was a ridiculous notion.

Ridiculous.

Fulcrum, he reminded himself. Fulcrum didn’t have any connections. Fulcrum wasn’t a real person. Fulcrum was an observer and a thief and a soldier in an underground war. Fulcrum was the best equipped to walk through this shopping center in the trail of the mark and her family. Not Cassian Andor, not Joreth Sward,  _definitely_ not Armande Salvor. Fulcrum.

A square of four ‘troopers passed on the other side of the sweet cream kiosk, one of them turning his head and nodding to the off-duty security officer. Yunas’ face turned distant and formal; she nodded back curtly and lowered her little girl, coincidentally moving the child below the kiosk counter and out of the ‘trooper’s direct sightline. Her spouse curled her hand over their son’s shoulder, bunching the collar of the boy’s shirt.

Force forgive him, but…mark.

A hand grabbed his elbow.

Cassian jerked forward, spinning on his heel, his other fist raised to strike out. They reacted so fast it could only have been from pure instinct, ducking before he was all the way around, spinning under his captured wrist like a dancer and popping up behind him. The move twisted his arm up behind his back. Cassian, heart hammering, adrenaline singing through his veins, wrenched his shoulder hard and stepped back, slamming his boot heel down on their foot, but they were already dodging, sidestep and then lunge forward and he was caught too neatly to escape. Their body weight and momentum forced him forward, knocking him chest-first into the smooth grey wall of the maintenance hall, their weight against his back, against his leveraged arm.

 _Her_  weight.

 _Her_ weight against his back.

“It’s me,” Jyn said in a breathless voice against the back of his neck, her fingers biting into his wrist. “It’s me. It’s  _me.”_

Cassian took a deep breath, forced back the terrified impulse to struggle. Stupid. Stupid and careless. He hadn’t even registered her proximity, let alone seen her coming. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the cold, rough wall, breathe, fool, breathe.

She waited a beat longer, then released his wrist, letting his arm drop back to his side. Cassian pressed both hands to the wall, breathe. Breathe.

“I’ve been following you for twenty minutes,” she said.

He nodded. Pushed himself off the wall. Turned to face her, hands fisted at his sides. “Sorry,” he jerked his chin at her. “You okay?”

She raised an eyebrow, tilted her head to the side, frowning. “You?”

Over her shoulder, Security Officer La Kai Yunas and her family moved away from the kiosk, the children enthusiastically attacking cups of sweet cream, the spouse looping her arm around Yunas’ waist over the grey uniform jacket.

Cassian watched them vanish into the crowds, and then turned back to Jyn. He opened his mouth to tell her that he was done for now, and they should head back to the ship for the rest of the night cycle.

“Where will you go,” he heard himself ask instead, his voice oddly flat, Fulcrum speaking without permission, or perhaps Sward, who wanted to keep his distance and somehow never could with Jyn, “after we find your father?”

Jyn’s eyes widened, her lips parted in astonishment. “What?”

Well, he thought hazily, it was a valid question, after all. If she wanted to leave, after that, he could hardly stop her. A new assignment within the rebellion. Back to the scout corps, maybe. Or he’d heard that the Pathfinders were headhunting, he could write her a recommendation if that was what she wanted. If she wanted to stay…if she wanted to stay, she could just say that, too. If.

She stepped back from him, sharply. “Why?” She asked, her shoulders and feet braced as if she expected him to attack her again, her eyes wary. “Where will  _you_  go, if we do?”

This time, it was definitely Cassian who spoke, though his voice felt like it came from far away. “I don’t know.”

They stood in silence for a long moment, and then Jyn shook her head, anger still evident in every line of her body. “Come on,” she snarled, walking out of the narrow maintenance hall and back into the shopping complex crowds. The harsh white lights gleamed in her dark hair and cast odd shadows in her eyes. She paused at the edge of the main corridor, refusing to turn and fully meet his gaze, but clearly waiting for him to follow. Angry with him, but unwilling to leave him behind.

If she was only using him to find her father…well, he had been used before, by worse people, for worse reasons.

Cassian pulled the heavy coat tighter around his shoulders, and followed her out into the lights.

 

* * *

 

 

 **[onboard the** _**Malta,** _ **Lumina Port, The Steel Ring, Resh District]**

He kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes straight ahead as they walked into the _Malta_. It was easy; Jyn never spoke a word nor reached for him once. Not that he expected her to touch him. Why would she? She had followed him through the shopping center, watching him mark out children as exploitation points and classify love as leverage. She needed space from him, that was obvious, and he didn’t blame her. He needed space from himself too, if only that were possible. If only he could peel away the slick of Salvor on his skin, trapped under the cold plates of Fulcrum’s indifference.

He couldn’t. That was the ugly truth of it.

Cassian didn’t bother to stop when Jyn stepped aside in the cargo hold, shucking off her coat and hanging it near the sealed hatch. He walked through the cargo hold, the tiny galley, and into their small cabin. He closed the door behind him and yanked off his jacket, his boots, his clothes. He shoved the lot, everything, even his boots, into the small laundry sonic in the bulkhead, and paused at the door only long enough to mark the sounds of Jyn moving around in the cockpit. She wouldn’t be able to see him walking through the ship stark naked, good. He couldn’t bring himself to dress in anything else, to let any of his clean clothes touch his dirty skin. It was a stupid impulse, but he just…couldn’t. The ‘fresher was just outside their cabin door anyway, barely two steps away. He crossed the exposed space quickly, his skin prickling in the cool recycled air of the ship. He leaned back against the door as it shut behind him, considering his options, ignoring how to the cold of the rough metal bit into his back and ass.

The ‘fresher was built to maximize space, so the sonic shower-plates were positioned around a small water-tight box, with the optional water showerhead curving out between the floor and ceiling plates. Since they were in port, they had hooked into the water lines available to the landing pad. The sonic shower would be more efficient, buzzing him clean in three minutes with relatively little energy wasted. He should take a quick sonic, get dressed, get back to work, analyzing whatever data Jyn had picked up on her excursion to the miner’s guild, maybe putting together a more detailed plan to get into the security station.

A more detailed plan to use a normal woman and her family for his own gains, possibly at the cost of their lives.

Cassian shook his head and reached for the water shower’s handle. A sonic wouldn’t be enough.

The water was ice cold as it gushed out of the old tap in an irregular pattern, until the creaky pipes finally adjusted to having actual water running through them and the flow evened out. Cassian stood quietly under the cold deluge, his eyes closed, hoping that the chill would maybe drive away the memory of wreckage burning in the streets of Coruscant as the whiskey burned down his throat. It didn’t, of course. He knew better than that.

Salvor didn’t care about the kids on the tram. Salvor didn’t care about the vapid Imperial wife. He definitely didn’t care about the mid-level Imperial officer that blocked the agenda of _La Brutalidad._ They were just a means to an end, a way to make his bones within the gang. Fulcrum cared only in terms of his objective – the gang would never grant him access to the files he needed unless he killed _someone_. That was just how these sort of organizations worked. Death was the ultimate sign of loyalty (it wasn’t, of course, but fools always seemed to believe so). Fulcrum knew that, and worked around it.

He hadn’t been anyone else, on Coruscant. Armande Salvor and Fulcrum were the only ones necessary to work that operation. The only ones who could possibly survive it.

The agent before Captain Cassian Andor had made it five weeks with La Brutalidad, trying to get their files. He had slipped out in the night, returned to Yavin IV, given his report, and walked calmly to his bunk. Four hours later, the agent had been in the morgue, his lips stained blue with the last kiss of the Lullaby.

Abruptly, Cassian thought of a warehouse in an old city, lying on his back with a woman pinning him down and watching him with wary eyes as he explained his time on Coruscant, the wretched stink of the fouled air down in the lower layers of the city-planet, the blood and the cruelty and the terrible mind-crushing terror of it all. The cold metal of the warehouse catwalk had dug into his back as her weight anchored him, telling her about the dead agent who came before, all the failed attempts at infiltrating the most powerful gang in that part of the underworld. He had…he had thanked her, hadn’t he? Still half-believing that she had only spent time with him because she was under orders from Command, hating the very idea that every touch she had given him had been just a ruse, a ploy to _assess_ him – he had lain there and thanked her anyway, for staying with him. For giving him even the few minutes of peace that he had found with her.

 _Jyn_ , she had whispered into his ear, an edge to her voice that might have been fear, might have been wonder, _my name is Jyn_.

The sensors in the showerhead were old, but still functional. As he stood lost in memory, they detected that he hadn’t adjusted the temperature to a more normal Human-preferred range, and did it for him. The water warmed, then grew a little warmer than he liked. He let it, wondering vaguely if the heat could do what the cold did not, and burn the bloody oil slick from his skin.

The ‘fresher door slid open.

Cassian tensed, but he didn’t turn.

Jyn stood there for a long, silent moment. It occurred to Cassian that the mirror over the sink was completely fogged over, that his skin was red under the water flow and his hands starting to wrinkle. He must have been in here longer than he thought. Then he heard the door slide shut, and the faint clink and rustle of her belt buckle, her boots, her clothes. Jyn left her gear in a pile on the floor (he almost smiled at that, but the effort was too great), and walked under the flow behind him.

Cassian flinched when he felt her fingertips resting gently against his back. He cursed himself for it, immediately, because of course she jerked away again. Of course she read it as a rejection.

But his skin still felt filthy with Salvor’s cruelty, his bones heavy with Fulcrum’s callousness, and even Sward stirred somewhere in the back of his mind, arguing that really, it was for the best that she feel rejected now. She would withdraw from him, and he would be better able to focus on the objective, on finding her father and whatever hellish thing her father was involved in building for the Empire. Sward had been the voice of caution all through Jedha, too, constantly reminding him that it was dangerous to trust her, dangerous to assume that her willingness to sleep curled against him or her apparent pleasure in running her fingers through his hair was anything more than part of her own persona. Her own objectives.

“Cassian,” Jyn said quietly behind him. “Can I touch you?”

He held himself very, very still.

Sward would say no, better not. Better to let go.

Salvor would shrug, because it didn’t matter.

Fulcrum would stay silent, wait to see what she did, how she reacted, mark the threats. Mark the weaknesses.

Cassian took a deep breath, and straightened his shoulders under the warm spray of water. “Yes.”

He expected her fingertips on his back again, the same tentative touch that he had accidentally shaken away.

Jyn stepped forward and wound her arms around his waist, her body pressing along his entire back, her lips warm on the back of his neck.

Cassian slammed his hand against the side of the shower to stop himself from pitching head first into the plas-steel wall.

He could feel her lips moving against his nape as she spoke. “Alright?” She tightened her grip on his waist, bracing him, almost cradling him back against her, as much as she could manage with his taller body.

The word felt entirely inadequate to even remotely describe how this felt, but then, so did any other word. He had spent his life learning how to say the right thing at the right time to get the result he wanted, or at least the one he needed. All his training and experience abandoned him, though, when Jyn turned her head and brushed her nose against the curve of his neck. Cassian cleared his throat and answered as best he could. “Yes. It’s…good.”

Jyn waited a little longer, until he began to feel steady on his own two feet again. And then she ran one hand up his chest, resting her palm over his heart for a beat before dragging in a slow swipe back down again. She stopped just below his navel, her fingertips brushing delicately against his inner hip.

Cassian’s heartrate spiked, and he shivered under her touch. She did it again, this time with both hands, slipping more smoothly than normal along his wet skin. It took him a moment to register the faint smell of soap – her hands were slick with it, leaving small white trails through his chest hair where she touched him. Jyn worked her hands down his chest once more, to his stomach, his hips, glancing her fingertips lower but immediately pulling back up to his navel. He felt her teeth scrape lightly against his shoulder as his blood quickened in his veins, his skin tightened and shivered in response.

His skin, which no longer felt slick or filthy. It burned, clean, wet, wanting.

Cassian licked his lips, opened his eyes, watched Jyn’s calloused, scarred hands working slowly back up his chest. “Tease,” he said, a little more hoarse than he intended, a little more certain than he felt.

Jyn laughed, a low, throaty sound that danced straight through every defense he had spent his life building and wrapped around his heart like a fist, like a coat, like an armor more pliable and protective than Fulcrum’s could ever be. The first time he had heard it, the first night he had known her, his heart had literally skipped a beat. That was…not a sensation with which he was wholly familiar. This laugh was softer than that, more subdued – she knew something was wrong, and she was less relaxed now than she had been then. Well, she had found him standing in the shower after what was probably several minutes, blank eyed and still. At best, he was behaving like an emotional fool. At worst…he was behaving like Salvor. Fulcrum. Sward. Someone she didn’t know, someone who didn’t care about her. Someone who would use her and throw her away. Someone who was only good enough to be used and thrown away in turn.

“No,” Jyn said over the bitter thoughts in his head, curling her fingers lightly against him, the water running in fascinating rivulets through her fingers. And then she froze, and Cassian’s stomach clenched in response. Jyn’s voice turned from amused to uncertain, hitching slightly on the last word. “Not unless you want me to stop.”

 _No,_ he thought, but his mouth refused to move. _No, I want you to stay. I want you to be here. I want to be the sort of person that makes you want to stay._ Why couldn’t he just say that? Why the hells didn’t he just turn around and…

He felt her pull away from his back, the water rushing down his shoulders now cold in comparison. Her hands slipped back, letting go, letting him go. Cassian’s heartrate spiked again, this time in fear. He was moving before he even registered it, hands flying up to catch her wrists and hold her palms against his ribs. But even then, even holding her tight enough to leave white indents in her skin, to feel her pulse thrumming under his fingers, even then he still could not open his forsaken mouth and say what he wanted, needed to say.

If he couldn’t speak, then he shouldn’t hold on. Cassian forced himself to let go of her wrists, to let her go.

Jyn sighed and _shoved_ him.

Cassian grunted in a particularly undignified way as he found himself chest-first against the wet shower wall, his hands splayed against the wall by his head in a reactionary attempt to catch himself, with Jyn leaning hard against his back. The move put him half-way out of the shower spray, but despite the exposure to the cool ship air and the colder plas-steel of the shower wall, he felt flushed and overheated, every inch of Jyn’s naked body against his back sparking with her heat.

“Cassian,” she said against his shoulder. “I want you to touch me.”

He closed his eyes and turned his forehead against the cool wall, feeling those words sink into him, engraving themselves on his bones. “I don’t want any of them to touch you,” he told her through a tight throat, the words forcing their way past his lips, spilling from him in time to his frantically beating heart. “I have never let them touch you, not even Sward. It was me on Jedha, whenever I touched you. Never Sward. Never any of the others.”

Jyn’s hands slipped back around his waist, which leveraged his hips back and put a little space between his lower body and the wall. “What does that mean?” She asked, and he startled as he realized he had switched to _Festa Alderaani_ , the language of his brief childhood, of his first rebel cell in his first battle zone. He rarely spoke it anymore, unless the mission called for it. Jyn had a way of startling it out of him – or perhaps he was simply a coward, able to speak honestly only when he knew she would not understand.

Cassian flexed his hands against the wall, breathing deep. Too much, it would be too much to explain now, and the more he spoke of Salvor, the more his skin began to itch and ooze with Salvor’s brutality. Put it away, Cassian. Put them all away. It’s done, and they are not needed. He would not wear those masks now. “Are you,” he ground out, “Are you sure?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “ _Cassian_ ,” Jyn kissed his shoulder blade. “Touch me.”

He twisted in her arms, looped his own around her waist, and hauled her in close. Jyn responded immediately, letting him lift and spin her until he was crowding her back against the shower wall. She gasped as the cool wall pressed along her spine, but Cassian reached back blindly and shifted the shower head to direct the warm water at their bodies, mitigating the chill.

Jyn slid her hands up and dug her fingers into his hair, dragging his mouth down to hers, and he went willingly. She tasted like the sweet red tea she liked so well, just as she had that first night when they had given no names and no promises, when he was half convinced he was dreaming the whole thing, half convinced that she would break his heart into pieces when she left.

He hadn’t, she had, but then she came back.

Cassian pinned her hips to the shower wall, digging his thumbs into the inner vee until she stopped rolling them against him, driving him to distraction with every beautiful move.

She came back in Jedha, in the warehouse with his recruits, whispering her name like a gift in his ear.

Jyn nipped his lower lip in retaliation, and pushed her thigh between his. Cassian groaned against her mouth at the pressure and friction, but she didn’t try to wiggle free from his hands, so he allowed it.

She came back on Jedha at the space port when he went looking for Kay, risking capture and death by air and ground patrols. She could have easily avoided all that danger, easily have taken over the mission and collected the remaining recruits, going to ground and waiting for the blockade to lift. But she came back for him.

Cassian slipped his hand down between them, traced his fingers down her navel and then between her legs. Jyn arched at the touch, her eyes flying open and blinking against the water running down her cheek and neck as she met his gaze.

She came to find him on the shuttle, with her dead recruit’s blood on his soul and cyanide in his mouth, and held him as he wept for the man he had killed to accomplish his mission, to secure the package (to save Jyn).

He moved his hand lightly against her clit, small and tight circles that made her cheeks flood with color, her chest heave as she leaned back her head and watched him through half-closed eyes. Her hips jerked, her thigh quivering between his; the sensation shivered from her body up through his cock and into his gut. He responded almost without thinking, moving his hand lower, longer, harder strokes between her legs, fingers slick and shaking just a little.

She came back to him on Yavin, when he thought she would hate him for dragging her painful past into the eyes of Alliance Command. She walked into his room and kissed him like she loved him, like he mattered. She knew who he was, knew what he did, knew _him,_ and she came back.

She came back, and she asked to stay.

“Cassian,” Jyn whispered, her lips parted, face flushed, thighs shivering and body arching so sweetly against his hand. He faltered, his heart hammering in his chest, because oh, Force save him, she was…she was calling his name. Not any of the others, it wasn’t Fulcrum she needed, not Sward she wanted. For just a moment, a perfect, beautiful moment, Cassian looked at her and knew that she was here for him. She was here for _Cassian_.

Jyn moaned, low in her throat, and moved her hands from his hair down to his shoulders. “Cassian,” she said, louder, firmer, looking him right in the eye. “I want you to touch me. _Please._ ” She dug her fingers into the sensitive spot at the base of his neck, and liquid fire shot from her touch down his spine and igniting the molten heat in his lower body like a dose of gasoline over a fire.

Cassian surged forward, capturing her mouth again, hyper aware of the rush of water over his skin, of the soft slick press of his fingers moving against her clit and the gorgeous way her body rolled against his in waves. He slipped two fingers into the soft warmth of her, felt her tighten around him in response as she moaned into his mouth. Her thigh shuddered and rubbed against his groin, her hands kneaded desperately at his neck and shoulders; he ached with it, with the sheer joy of having her gasping and moving against him like this. But he held his breath as much as he could, held himself in check, denied the release his body so badly wanted. She wanted him to touch her. She was beautiful and strong and smart and if this was all an act, then she was the best actress the galaxy had ever seen.

“Look at me,” he said hoarsely, lifting his head so that he could see when her eyes opened and focused on him. Cassian slid his free hand up from her hip, his palm catching against the long ragged scar on her ribs just under her left breast. He outlined the scar with his fingertips, then cupped his hand around the swell of her breast, tracing his thumb in a soft circle around her nipple. His breath caught in his chest as her pupils dilated, her kiss-swollen lips parted, her head fell back against the shower wall and her whole body tightened and arched up to meet him. It took every fragment of his willpower to hold back his own reaction to her sheer, obvious pleasure at his touch.

And then she smiled at him, wide and bright and so fucking _beautiful,_ tight around his fingers, hard against his groin, and in her eyes he could see the shine of…happiness. She was happy, here with him, with his hands on her body, with his name on her tongue. She smiled at him as she shuddered and came at his touch, and the tension in Cassian snapped.

She caught him as he collapsed forward onto her, his orgasm spilling onto her thigh as he buried his face in her throat. Cassian wound both arms tight around her waist and shoulders, curling his body into her warmth, feeling the shower spray down his back and down their tangled legs, washing them both clean again.

Jyn kissed his ear, his neck, his shoulder; her muscles still twitched and jerked slightly, her thighs tensing and relaxing against his. Aftershocks, she had told him once, gentle echoes of her orgasm rocking through her until they faded away. The only thing she wanted from him then was to be held, she said, so Cassian breathed slowly and curled himself around her.

At last, Jyn reached up and switched off the shower head, leaving them both dripping in the cool ship air. Cassian held on a moment longer, eyes squeezed tight, then slowly let Jyn’s weight drop back fully to her own feet. She regained her balance gracefully, the smile more subdued but still visible in the corners of her lips and the light in her eyes.

Cassian grabbed the towels and handed her one, stepping back and giving her some room to dry herself off. His heel caught on her discarded trousers, her belt clinking as he stumbled to catch himself. Jyn smothered a low laugh, and he shot her a pointed look as he knelt down and scooped up her piled gear in one arm. He slung the towel around his waist and walked back to their cabin, dumping the clothes on the bed, meticulously separating the belt, holster, boots, and other bits of gear from the trousers, shirts, and underclothes. He turned to shove the clothes into the laundry sonic on the wall, only to find Jyn already there, stark naked, opening the embedded door and pulling out his clothes. Cassian offered her the stack of her own dirty clothes, intending to switch with the clean load in her arms. She smirked at him, plopped her damp towel on top of his pile, and sidling around to dump his clothes on the bed next to her separated gear. His eye caught on the scar on her ribs, and already his hands itched to reach out and trace it again. Jyn stilled, and he glanced up to catch her watching him over the curve of her bare shoulder, her eyebrow raised, the smirk wider on her face.

Cassian raised his own eyebrow in mocking repeat, and turned to shove her clothes into the sonic and program it to run immediately. When he turned back around, to his surprise, Jyn was setting his heavy leather jacket neatly over the stack of his folded clothes. She shrugged at his expression – Jyn never folded clothes, considering it a waste of time and effort. She crossed her arms as he stared, her fists curled a little defensively.

Perhaps he had set her off balance, after all. Had he worried her with his behavior in Kafrene, or had he frightened her with the long time he had stood in the shower, unmoving and unresponsive?

(In the far back of his mind, a quiet, poisonous thought – had he hit too close by implying that she was only here for her father?)

“Enjoying the view?” Jyn asked dryly, tilting her head.

Ah. He had been staring, hadn’t he? And yes, her shoulders were a little tight, her fists still curled under her crossed arms, but the rest of her posture was relaxed, and there was still humor in her face.

Cassian opened his mouth to reassure he that he was only concerned…and then closed it again as his brain finally recovered from the faded tangle of confused fears and more recent haze of golden pleasure. “Yes,” he said simply, and walked past her to grab a clean set of trousers and undershirt from his pack, hanging on the bulkhead next to the bunk. Jyn stood still as he passed, and Cassian casually reached out and ran his hand down the curve of her ass.

She snorted and moved toward her own pack. She pulled out clean underclothes, but she took an unusually long time about it, rifling through the bag as if she were looking for something, or rearranging the contents of the pack. A stalling maneuver, perhaps, or she might just be lost in her own thoughts. Cassian pulled on his own clothes quickly, and then on impulse fished out an extra clean shirt and launched it with expert aim over his shoulder. It plopped neatly on to the top of Jyn’s head, and he chuckled as she jumped and snatched it off. She glared at him, but pulled the shirt over her head, letting the hem fall around the tops of her thighs.

Cassian gathered her gear from the bed and set about hanging it neatly over the bunk, the blaster holster where she could reach it by the edge of the bunk, the vibroblades tucked into the various nooks and defensive spots she preferred. His own katar went into the neat slot she had fashioned for it just over his head on the wall, where he could reach up and grab it without even sitting up.

When he was finished, he looked around for his datapad in the yellow glow of the security screens.

Jyn leaned against the cargo webbing on the far side of the cabin, and held it up for him to see.

“Thanks,” he held out his hand, but she didn’t move. “I need to write up today’s op summary,” Cassian told her, his hand still outstretched.

She shrugged.

“Jyn.”

She pushed off the bulkhead, stalking towards him, the datapad clutched in her hand. Her shoulder brushed against his chest as she walked right past him and to the bunk, and his datapad thunked slightly onto the foldout desk under the security screens.

She crawled into the bunk, making a point of wiggling to the side to make room for him, and lay on her side facing him. His shirt rode up along her thighs, her hair fanned out over her head along the pillow, and her eyes caught the golden light as she sighed and stretched her legs out.

Cassian laughed. He couldn’t help it; he was just…happy.

“Alright,” he said, and crossed the space to slide into the space she had made for him. “You win.”

Jyn curled her arm around his chest and pulled him close, throwing her leg over his hip as he settled in. “Good,” she murmured against his shoulder, voice turning low and drowsy as she cuddled close. Her breathing evened out against his chest, her limbs relaxing against him as she drifted into sleep. Cassian pressed his nose into her hair, closed his eyes, and followed her there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of callbacks in this one. Hope it wasn't too confusing.


	6. Day 7: Operational Security Measures

**[Security Station Qusongite, The Gold Ring, Resh District]**

“She’s late,” Jyn said, drumming her fingertips idly on the wall behind her. The plas-steel walls of the Gold Ring had apparently been washed recently, the ever-present graffiti of Kafrene temporarily beaten back to expose shiny black metallic structures beneath. Some areas of the streets were still wet with sludgy runoff, so it was probably done by an early morning work crew. This was a wealthier, more controlled area, but even so, Cassian could see dashes and drips of color slinking back in around the edges. Someone had painted a vicious red and orange figure on the foundation of the nearest shop, a Human writhing as he burned alive. Most of it was a little less subversive - a few colorful words decorated nearby trash compactors and one sign post sported a spray of tiny pink flowers – but even that small rebellion was dangerous in Kafrene.

And yet, Cassian thought as he leaned his head back against the wall behind him, the graffiti crept back every time, as pervasive as any weed.

“Not much,” he said, idly squinting at blue words written in a neat but tiny hand across a nearby lamppost. _Tody was here_. Or maybe it was _Tolly? Tofu?_ Hmm.

“Six minutes,” Jyn grumbled, her fingers still tapping against the black durasteel of the office building they leaned against. A pink goblin-like stick figure with exaggerated red eyes had been drawn onto the wall behind her, and her position meant that the top half of the creepy little creature’s face was only just visible, the rest of the drawing hidden by her body. He wasn’t sure which looked grumpier – Jyn, or the little gremlin glaring at him over her shoulder. She huffed lightly as another minute ticked over, and checked her chrono as if she thought she could glower time into cooperating.

Cassian scratched at his beard lightly to hide his smile. “She’s dropping off a lunchbox,” he reminded her, “not checking in a patrol.”

Jyn looked up from her chrono at him with narrow eyes. He raised his eyebrows and gave up trying to hide his amusement. She snorted at him, and went back to tapping on the wall. “It’s sloppy,” she said curtly, but without any real condemnation.

“Civilian,” Cassian shrugged at her.

“Sloppy,” she repeated.

Patience, Cassian had learned, did not come naturally to Jyn. He considered teasing her a little more about it, something to distract her from her mild irritation, but the silence they had lapsed into was comfortable. He had not told her yet, but he enjoyed the way they could not talk, when they did not need to talk. It gave him room to think without feeling…isolated. Cassian glanced from the street to Jyn again, and noted that her face had relaxed marginally, her fingers tapping in a gentle rhythm instead of an impatient cadence. Over her shoulder, the gremlin still glared, but she had shifted her weight and now he could also see the little grin the artist had added to their odd creation. Cassian eyed it, a touch unsettled by that unblinking smile, then turned away to study the street again. Not a lot of foot traffic through here this time of day, and only the occasional ‘trooper patrol stomping in and out of the security station. At the moment, there was hardly anyone at all out here, except Cassian, Jyn, and the returning graffiti.

Was it stupidity that led the locals to smuggle spraycans and paintsticks in their clothes? Unchecked idiocy that risked the cold retaliation of the Stormtroopers just to scrawl their names on the streetlamp? Or was it spite that drew the little meaningless symbols and artistic renditions of fires and flowers? Was it gang sign or a symbol of community? Blind rage or unblinking hope?

“Brought a big lunch today,” Jyn broke into his meandering thoughts. Cassian shook himself and focused. Security Officer La Kai Yunas’ green-haired spouse slunk carefully up the side of Qusongite security station. She was…far too obvious about her deception. Looking blatantly over her shoulder, making visible checks along the upper walls for security cameras, creeping along in irregular bursts with her shoulder brushing periodically against the wall. Her body language and expression screamed ‘I am doing something wrong!’ to anyone who saw her. Fortunately for her, there were no cameras in that particular section of the alley, and no good lines of sight from the street except for the one Cassian and Jyn had chosen to occupy. The negative of their position was the line of sight right back – had she been skilled at this sort of thing, the spouse would have seen them watching her.

Amateur that she was, she completely failed to look across the street, and instead leaned against the wall in the alley with a small but weighty-looking box in her arms.

“Lot of effort,” Jyn muttered, “just to see each other a few minutes.”

Cassian tugged his coat a little tighter around his body, against the chilled air of the city. “People have done more, for less.”

Jyn flashed him an odd look, but he kept his attention on the woman in the alley. A few minutes later, Yunas slipped out of the side door and strolled casually around the side of the building, then ducked into the alley and kissed her spouse.

And then checked over her shoulder, at the oblivious street behind them.

A quiet, cold voice in the back of Cassian’s head whispered, _mark_.

His stomach twisted, and he clamped his jaw tight to keep the bile down. At his side, Jyn shifted uncomfortably as the two women embraced, passing the box between them. Such open displays of affection did that to her, made her fidget (more than usual) and turn away. Cassian hadn’t figured out how to talk to her about that, or if he even should. Did she _want_ him to talk to her about it? What would he even say? _Does it bother you when people are so obviously vulnerable? Do you also hear the voice in the back of your head, pointing out all the ways you can manipulate or break that connection? Does it sound like Saw Gerrera, or Galen Erso?_

_Or does it sound like your own voice to you, too?_

 Whatever he could or should have said to Jyn as they watched the Imperial and her spouse press close in the alley, he didn’t say it. They waited in silence for the few minutes it took for the Imperial guard to receive her food, exclaim over the contents, kiss her spouse again. Yunas straightened her hair and disappeared back into the station, and the spouse hugged herself tightly for a moment before strolling out into the street with only a slightly stilted lurch to her affected casual attitude.

Cassian glanced at Jyn, who met his eyes, recognition flashing between them as the spouse walked by. It only lasted the briefest of moments, but it broke through to something small and fragile and needy in Cassian – Jyn looked at him and understood exactly what he needed her to do, understood that he would be right behind her as she did it, and she simply accepted, and acted.

This was what it felt like, he thought as she pushed off the wall and strolled after the spouse without comment, to have a partner. It was…he could barely…

He waited several long breaths as his partner sauntered down the street, and then he moved to follow.

They trailed the spouse for several blocks, moving outward through the city rings until she crossed from the Gold Ring to the Silver Ring, headed for a small dining district. From his position, Cassian only occasionally caught flashes of green hair or a dark scarf, but every few minutes Jyn would breathe directions in his ear.

“Flint Street, out-bound,” she murmured when he lost them in the crowd pushing towards the outer ring markets.

“Crossing at Mesolite Checkpoint,” she prompted when he was caught in a Ring shift behind her and had to backtrack to the next cross-street between the Gold Ring and the Silver Ring.

“Chip of Gypsum, open-sided café, second level,” she directed when he walked into a relatively large commercial area with various “ethnic” restaurants lining the slightly-run-down atmosphere. They were still relatively close to the Central Shaft of the great drill connecting Kafrene’s two halves, but it was less well-kept around here than in the Gold Ring, less obviously aimed at the wealthy. Wisps of ammonia-scented air twisted through the faint breeze stirring the silver banners, and the majority of the waiters, merchants, and visible street-cleaning crews were non-Human.

Of course, there were still plenty of Stormtroopers patrolling the streets, and the catwalks overhead.

Cassian shoved his hands into his pockets and pushed through the crowd towards a small café with a chunk of neon-lit gypsum crystal swinging under one of the giant silver banners. He spotted the spouse immediately; she sat in the back corner near the bar with a drink at her elbow. It took him a minute to find Jyn, sitting on a public bench on the third level to the side, with a clear line of sight on the café, staring at her datapad as if she were wholly absorbed by it.

Cassian paused by a public terminal and called up a local map for the dining district. The terminal blared advertisements and recommendations, but he tuned it out, skimming through the various menus and dietary warnings with his chin tucked into his collar to hide his mouth.

“Ready,” he breathed.

“Diona Riggers,” Jyn’s voice crackled in his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just see her raising her datapad, her fingers flying over the screen as she read off the scandoc information she had sliced and copied from the spouse’s documents while following close. “Born on Kafrene, thirty years old. Registered marriage to La Kai Yunas eight years ago. Child, La Kai Oba, seven years old. Child, La Kai Kiri, four years old. Riggers is a part time cook in the Gypsum, gets an employee discount. Got a day planner program, filled out pretty regularly.” Jyn’s voice turned contemplative, and he didn’t have to look up to know that she was frowning at her datapad, her attention focused on whatever oddity in the data had drawn her eye. “Medical records are double encrypted with a third-party licensed program.”

That was interesting. Most scandocs in this part of Imperial-controlled space had basic medical records embedded in them with the standard information: age, blood type, allergies. Citizens were allowed to encrypt their medical data if they wanted to – in fact, whole businesses centered on offering various “protection” programs – but it was generally considered pointless, since the Empire only had to get the authorization of an officer, any level of officer, to get the encryption key from the companies. Locking your medical data on Kafrene would offer at most an hour of resistance to an Imperial who scanned it.

It was also heavily stigmatized in this sector. People usually assumed anyone with locked medical data was hiding drug use, or worse. After all, many of their local political leaders made a point of asking often and loudly, if you had nothing to hide, why bother?

“And I’m through,” Jyn said before Cassian had even finished his bitter thought. He closed out of the terminal and walked towards the café, running his hand through his hair and casually tapping his comm’s hidden ear piece as he did it.

“Yeah, yeah, hang on,” she grumbled, distracted. “I’m getting there. Give me a second. There’s a lot of stuff in….”

Cassian entered the café, paused by the hanging menu at the door as if perusing the wares. “Any clubs?” he asked quietly. “Memberships, regular calendar meetings?”

“Parental meetings once a month at a local school, probably where her kids go. Lots of notes attached to the meeting reminders. Names, comm numbers – looks like mostly teachers and other parents…and a lawyer.” Jyn paused, and Cassian used the kiosk to order a small glass of the local chilled tea, sending it to Riggers’ table. A moment later, Jyn crackled on his ear piece again. “Doctor’s meetings, lots of those. I’ve got the names and locations but not the reason she…hm, she canceled her membership to a sewing group four months ago, deleted all future meetings. Other than that, no groups, no meetings. The only contact list in her planner is stuff related to her kids’ school.”

The spouse, Diona Riggers, was picking at a small salad of some kind, her attention locked on her own datapad as she ate. A newstream, something about new pharmaceutical regulations in the sector. He couldn’t read much more than the headline from his angle. Whatever it was, it made her brow furrow and her foot bounce nervously under the table.

Cassian took a deep breath, walked over, and sat down across from her.

Riggers jerked her head up, her green curls bouncing a little as she stared at him – and Cassian suddenly knew what Jyn would find in the woman’s convoluted medical records.

Diona Riggers looked at him with wide, dark purple eyes that no Human could achieve without expensive gene modification, offset by the distinct olive green tinge to her otherwise pale skin that darkened around her eyelids like particularly thick makeup. At a distance, she had merely looked expensively dressed and painted. Up close, it was obvious that neither the dark green tinge of her skin nor the bright green of her hair was some kind of cosmetic alteration. It was her actual organic coloring.

His brain made a series of rapid connections. Four months ago, she canceled her membership to the only group activity she was apparently involved in. That would have been right after a major holiday in certain parts of the Outer Rim Territories. A relentless interest in her children’s welfare at school, a lawyer in her contacts list. No work friends in her contacts. No one meeting her for lunch. Clandestine kisses with her legal spouse.

Cassian leaned back in his chair, and settled his folded hands on his stomach, as relaxed as any man meeting with an old friend. “A grandparent,” he guessed, meeting her eyes and tilting his head. “Maybe more than one grandparent, if the genes are strong enough to pass to your daughter.”

“What the – who are – _excuse me?”_

“One of your grandparents was Mirialan,” Cassian clarified calmly. In his ear, he heard Jyn hum in surprise and then agreement. “If it were a parent, you would be more obviously mixed. Mirialan traits are typically recessive when mixed with Human, but they still linger. A grandparent explains the,” he gestured at his own face, “the colors.”

“Listen, arsehole,” Riggers’ expression turned sour, “I don’t care what you think about mixed races, okay? Get away from –“

“It also explains the heavy encryption on your medical records,” Cassian cut her off, keeping his tone light. “Why you spend so much time at the doctor. And why your spouse sneaks out to meet with you for her lunch, instead of letting you drop it off at the front desk of the station.”

Riggers snapped her mouth shut, the pallor of her skin making the green tinge around her eyes even more distinct. Cassian felt his stomach clench again at her fear, but he didn’t have time to make friends, didn’t have time to work his way slowly into her good graces. The Alliance intel connecting Galen Erso to this place – intel he had paid a high price to obtain - was weak at best. The trail might go cold at any moment.

He had to do this the ugly way.

“Who the hells are…” Riggers said in a low, tense voice, her fingers clenched around her fork, her jittering foot finally going still beneath the table.

He shrugged, and told the truth. “At the moment, no one in particular.”

If he listened very hard, he could just barely hear the soft whisper of Jyn’s breath in his ear piece.

Cassian leaned forward, keeping his gaze intent on Riggers’ eyes. “But I might be the only friend you have on Kafrene, Diona Riggers.”

He waited, held her gaze, and then a chirpy voice at his elbow said, “One Chilled Rock Hammer Tea, sir. Have a nice day!” A serving droid set a glass of tea at Cassian’s elbow, then scuttled away back to the kitchen of the café.

Cassian waited until the droid was gone, then resettled himself back in his chair. He rested his hand next to the glass to claim it, but didn’t lift it to his mouth. He had ordered the drink for the appearance of the thing, not because he was in a hurry to leave his fingerprints or saliva behind as evidence. He kept his other hand below the table, and he saw Riggers mark the decision. Knew she was wondering if he had a blaster pointed at her where she couldn’t see. He didn’t, but he allowed her wonder. The ugly way, he reminded himself. There was no time for anything else.

Riggers looked at his tea like she expected it to explode, and then back to Cassian’s calm, empty face. “Rock Hammer,” she said at last, sounding adrift and grasping at anything familiar to balance herself. “I always hated that one. Too acidic.”

Cassian shrugged. He gave her a few minutes of silence to work out how she was going to react, and he watched through half-closed eyes as her thoughts played out on her face as plain as if she had spoken each out loud. She wanted to get up and run away, maybe call her spouse and demand help, demand action. But he was too dangerous for that, she didn’t know what he would do, if he would follow. Her eyes flicked to the wait-staff over his shoulder, the ones visible through the plas-glass between the food prep counter and the tables. From the bitter twist of her mouth, none of them even met her eyes, nor did she honestly expect them to.

He wondered briefly how many of them told themselves it had nothing to do with her halfbreed status.

“They won’t help,” he said softly. Her purple eyes snapped back to his, and Cassian allowed himself just the faintest glimmer of genuine sympathy to show in his voice, in his face. “Even if they could tell you were in trouble, you know they won’t help. You don’t spend time with any of them after work, do you? You don’t have nights out and dinners in, don’t go to the latest holo or chat about your favorite shows. No friends listed in your contacts.” Cassian tilted his head. “You quit your knitting circle after the Day of Choice celebration. I’m going to guess that someone in your circle said something cruel about your family celebrating a holiday that only Mirilians observe, the rest of them sided against you in the argument, and so you cancelled your membership and deleted their names from your contacts.”

Riggers’ mouth was hanging slightly open. Over her shoulder, he saw the serving droid bustle by again, bearing a large plate of vibrantly-colored drinks to a table full of chattering Humans. Most of the drinks had bits of rock candy or patterned decorations hanging from them. A burst of laughter and talk as the droid arrived at the table and distributed the cocktails around. Riggers flinched at the noise, but didn’t turn around. “I’m not,” she started, then set her jaw hard against the faint quiver in her voice (too late, he heard it, _mark_ ). “I’m not ashamed of my heritage,” she told him flatly. Her knuckles were white on the handle of her fork. “I am proud of my family. I will teach my children to be proud, like my mother taught me.”

Cassian shrugged. “You can be as loud or as quiet about your family as you like.” And then he forced his next words through the burn of acid in his throat, jerking his chin up to indicate the laughing Humans behind her. “But you’ll never be safe.”

The silence at their table was rivalled only by the silence of his earpiece.

Cassian didn’t turn and look up at the balcony across from them. It took effort, but he didn’t look.

Riggers swallowed visibly. “Are you threatening me?” She spoke in the same flat, hard voice, and to someone who didn’t know better, she looked calm, focused, even dangerous. But Cassian had been doing this work for a long, long time. He noted the slight shake of the fork in her hand, the rapid pulse beating in her pale throat, the way her shoulders crept up defensively and her foot began to jiggle nervously under the table. She was terrified. He had terrified her.

Captain Cassian Andor, he thought quietly. Hero of the war against the tyrannical Empire. Fighting for the oppressed masses. Defending the innocent.

He put the thought firmly aside and focused on the task at hand. “The dust from the mine,” he said, his voice distant and clinical. “It’s annoying for most species, but negligible. But Mirialans are particularly sensitive to some of the mine pollution that floats around here. You get sick a lot, don’t you, Miz Riggers? All those doctor visits. Although I’m willing to bet that many of those visits are not for you. Your daughter,” he had to stop before his voice wavered, before he gave himself away. It was only a brief pause, but her eyes had widened when he brought up her child, of course they had, damn him to every hell. Cassian steeled his spine and relaxed his jaw back into neutral. “There’s a distinct possibility that your daughter will develop a lasting condition that will have her in pain her whole life. Even if she is only a fraction Mirialan. Kafrene will punish her anyway,” he realized his hand had started to clench next to his untouched tea glass, and stretched his fingers smooth against the table top again. “For the crime of being less than fully Human.”

Over her shoulder, the crowded table burst into another round of laughter, and raised their cocktail glasses in a toast.

Diona Riggers set her fork down on the table as carefully as if it were delicate crystal, and folded her arms tightly across her belly. Her brief attempt at bravado was over, it seemed. “What do you want?”

Cassian considered. He had pushed her hard, forced her into a corner too fast. If he simply came out with his objective, if he demanded something she deemed impossible, she would break and he would have a real problem on his hands. He had to rush this, but if he wasn’t very careful, he would not only fail the mission, but get a lot of good people hurt or killed.

“Why haven’t you moved?” He asked at last. “Yunas could transfer to another post. There are a lot of places in this sector that aren’t poisonous to -”

“To what? To _my kind?_ ” she cut him off, her anger flaring up. This, he could see, was an old wound, one that many had obviously prodded before. She seemed to almost forget that he was a dangerous stranger, forget for a moment that he had obliquely threatened her life and her family. “And how do you imagine we would do that, Mister Stranger? Yunas’ commander looks down on her for marrying a halfbreed. She can’t retire for another twelve years without incurring financial penalties,” she practically spit the words, and Cassian heard years’ worth of derision and helplessness in the woman’s voice. “We can’t afford to leave until her contract service is up. Not even if this fucking city is killing –“ she cut off, her eyes flashing to the side with alarm.

Which was good, because Cassian had been a breath away from cutting her off himself. The last thing they needed was that patrol of Stormtroopers who had just marched into view on the nearby street to overhear her discontent.

“Standby,” Jyn’s voice in his ear was so sudden that Cassian almost jumped. He caught it in time, not that it mattered. Riggers was focused on the ‘troopers, and no one else in the café was paying him the slightest attention. Even the security cameras were turned away from him, scanning the crowds in the streets.

The nearest camera, in fact, abruptly spun to point at the street opposite him, moving so fast it’s servos whined. The rest of the cameras snapped to face the same way, all pointing at a small shop full of expensive-looking clothing. The Imperial crest was painted proudly in the center of the door. To the side, the lead Stormtrooper paused, his skull-like mask tilting slightly to the side as if he was listening to something, and then he turned and pointed at the shop. The patrol marched in lockstep to the door, and slammed it open, all five of them vanishing inside.

“Set off a theft alarm,” Jyn murmured in his ear. “That shop pays a hefty protection fee to the local station. They have accounts for several of the Central Shaft personnel.” He could almost hear the relish in Jyn’s otherwise clipped, professional tone. He bit back the tiny smile he could feel pulling on his mouth; Jyn must have scanned the area looking for possible marks while he worked Riggers. A fancy shop that sold overpriced shirts to the Imperial elite would draw her ire like a glim-moth to flame.

“Miz Riggers,” Cassian said as the last of the ‘troopers vanished from sight. “I need to speak to your spouse.”

Riggers snapped back to him, her eyes narrow. “No.”

Cassian waited.

Riggers upper lip curled. “ _No._ ”

Quietly, Jyn spoke again in his ear. “Her son has a grav-ball game scheduled for this afternoon. Chrosite Youth Center.” She was striving for neutral, but he could hear the subtones in her voice anyway. Regret. Fear. Acceptance.

His fault, all of them.

Cassian drew in a breath; even as he swallowed back the bitterness of his thoughts, the words were arranging themselves on his tongue in sharp, neat rows. _I suppose I can meet her at Chrosite Youth Center tonight, if we can’t figure out a more convenient schedule_. _She does plan to attend Oba’s game, doesn’t she?_

“Please,” Riggers whispered. Her hands were fists against her sides, her arms hugging herself so tightly that Cassian felt a brief flash of anger at the other people in this café. She was practically screaming for help with her body language, and not a single person so much as paused. Not even the people who surely recognized her, who worked with her in that very kitchen a few steps away.

He couldn’t open his mouth. He couldn’t move.

_Whatever this thing is, Draven frowned down at his datapad. Whatever Erso is involved in, Andor - the general sighed, his stern expression faltering under a brief moment of weariness. Whatever it is, Analysis thinks it’s worse than anything we’ve seen before. We have to know what’s coming. We have to find Erso._

_We’ll find your father, Jyn, he had promised, cold hands clenched in his lap and afraid to meet her eyes, to see hatred or disbelief in her face. We’ll find out where the Empire sent him, and why he stayed._

_And Force, she had_ thanked _him, and he would have done anything to pull the pain out of her voice, would have gladly carried it in her stead._

“I need her help,” he said into the silence between them. “I’m sorry.”

Riggers stilled, even her chest pausing as if she had forgotten to breathe.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

“No,” Jyn said abruptly. “That was too fast. She’s not hooked enough. She’ll tell Yunas you threatened her, and Yunas will tell her commanders. They’ll trap you.”

Cassian leaned forward again, folded his hands on the table top where Riggers could see them both. “When?”

“ _No,_ ” Jyn snapped.

Riggers reached a shaking hand out and snapped her datapad open.

“She’s pulling up her calendar,” Jyn told him. “Tomorrow’s schedule. Only entry is ‘S-S Fest, Osmium.’ Osmium’s a market district in the Silver Ring.”

Riggers tapped her finger contemplatively against the datapad, then looked up at him. “Tomorrow is her day off. We were going to the Star Spear Festival in Osmium sector.” She paused, took a deep breath. “My kids will be there,” she said quietly. “But so will a lot of other people. Lots of ‘trooper patrols around the perimeter.” She met his eye with a hard light in her own. “And I promise you that when I scream, I sound just like any other nice Human Imperial lady.”

Jyn snorted. This time, Cassian let the smile pulling on his lip win. Good for her. “Understood.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jyn told him, but there was no edge to it.

“I’ll see you there,” Cassian replied.

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled.

“Okay,” Riggers nodded, unaware of Cassian’s second conversation. “Goodbye, um…”

He looked at her, ignoring the cue to fill in a name. Finally, she shook her head and collapsed her datapad back down.

“Goodbye,” she repeated, a little testily (he didn’t blame her, but he didn’t apologize either). She turned on her heel and marched out of the café, her head high, her shoulders still too stiff. The waiter manning the front door waved at her as she left, an empty gesture of performative friendship. He saw Riggers hesitate, and then give the same empty gesture back, smiling with brittle pleasantry. That waiter probably saw her hunched and shivering before him at the table, a suspicion that Cassian confirmed when the man glanced back at him and then immediately away, much faster than casual indifference could explain. The waiter had seen and refused to intervene, and Riggers knew it.

But she still had to work here, he supposed.

Well, that was Riggers’ fight to face, not his. Not today. Today, he had to get back to the ship and try not to scour Jyn’s face for signs of revulsion, or worse. He had to prep for his meeting with Yunas. He had a feeling she would be less easy to push into helping him. Jyn was right on one thing, he thought as he pushed himself up from the café table and sauntered casually towards the door. If Yunas felt her children were threatened, she would probably call in the ‘troopers. She may have been afraid of them, but she wouldn’t hesitate to throw them between her family and a dangerous outsider.

He hooked around the side of the building, aiming for the small alley between the café and the next restaurant over. He could cut through to the back street where most of these places dumped their garbage for pick up, and then outwards towards the Copper Ring. Jyn could follow on the upper levels until the cross point and then –

His earpiece crackled. “No wait, not that way!”

Cassian froze, but even before Jyn’s words had fully registered in his mind, he knew it was too late.

“Halt,” a mechanized voice buzzed directly in front of him, five white skull-like faces turning to peer expressionlessly at him. “This area is under investigation. Let’s see your scandocs.”

The thief alarms, Cassian realized a moment too late. The ‘troopers must have decided to check the alleys for the ‘thief.’ He had missed them walking across the street, probably too focused on Riggers, on the words he couldn’t bring himself to say. Now he had walked right into a checkpoint.

He swallowed, nodded, hoping his momentary fear would merely register as a normal startled citizen to the ‘troopers. He dropped his shoulders, spread his feet a little to make his body language more open and reassuring, and smiled with nervous but obliging brightness. “Sure, sure,” he said politely, deferentially, nodding his head a little more than typical. Just a silly, slightly jumpy citizen, fumbling with his bag, harmless. “Of course, officer. Of course. Hang on, just a moment,” he smiled with as much self-deprecating charm as he could muster as he dug around in his bag. As he hoped, the ‘troopers didn’t lunge forward and grab his wrists to keep them in sight. This sector was not known for rebel activity; these ‘troopers had likely never been stationed on one of the less “controlled” planets. Still, he had to move fast. He had two sets of scandocs on him (a blaster in the bottom of the bag, but that was…not a good option, not with five of them, and a crowded street behind him).

“Tyree,” Jyn hissed in his ear, her breath a little strained, like she was running. “Give them Tyree.”

“Here,” Cassian grabbed the right disc and held it up to the lead ‘trooper. “Sorry, it fell under my – uh, here it is, sir.” He shrugged helplessly, _oh dear, I’m such a mess, so sorry, what a silly person, not a threat at all, no need for a search._

The lead ‘trooper took the disc almost indifferently, his black eye sockets locked on Cassian’s face. “Harrod Tyree,” he read as the holo of Cassian’s head popped up over the disc. (His face was slightly altered, although it was hard to tell with the naked eye. Enough to confuse a facial database, should they enter his scandoc data into the local system.) “Contract pilot.”

“Local system transport only,” Cassian spread his hands. “You, uh, you boys in need of a short hop somewhere? Little vacation time coming up? The Umbara system has some lovely little spots.”

The lead ‘trooper flicked his scandoc off and shoved it back into Cassian’s hands with the same indifference with which he had taken it. “Move along,” he said flatly.

Cassian’s lungs relaxed slightly, though his heart was still going a touch too fast. He crammed the disc back in his bag. “Of course, sir, thank you, sir,” he smiled widely, bobbing his head a little more, harmless, helpless, visibly relieved - but not too relieved, because Tyree had nothing to hide, Tyree was just a nervous little man going about his business –

“Hey,” one of the ‘troopers in the back of the squad said abruptly, and there was something in his mechanized voice that made Cassian’s heart drop straight into his shoes. “Hey, wait,” the ‘trooper repeated, his voice startled and…young. The lead ‘trooper turned to look at him, the other three Stormtroopers already looking from Cassian to their compatriot. “I know you.”

Cassian made the connection half a second before he heard the young ‘trooper say, with a malicious sort of triumph, “You threatened to report me the other day! You acted like an instructor but you’re really - ”

Cassian’s blaster screamed inside of his bag, his shot hitting the ‘trooper directly in the heart. The ‘trooper dropped to the dirty alley floor like a puppet with it’s strings cut, turned from soldier to pile of discarded white plasteel in less than a breath. The ‘trooper leader dropped at almost the same time, Cassian’s second shot so close to the first that it sounded like a single bolt. He was moving before both ‘troopers were completely down, dropping his blaster inside the bag again and grabbing wildly for the small round shape of his other last resort. Behind him, he heard someone scream and the sounds of many feet thundering away from the alley; ahead of him, the three other ‘troopers reflexively brought up their rifles, all of them aimed at his chest.

Jyn breathed his name in his ear, or perhaps he only imagined it.

Cassian’s thumb found the button on the mini-EMP grenade a fraction of a second before the first living ‘trooper managed to pull his trigger. He felt a faint buzz on his body as his datapad, his earpiece, and the vibroblade in his left sock all went dead simultaneously. The streetlamps and lights of the buildings on either side went dark, though there was enough ambient light from the city that he could make out three white shapes staggering back, one of them clutching at his head. Stormtrooper armor was loaded with various electronics, some of which were patched directly into sensory nerves in their heads. The feedback shock must have hurt like hell, but it would wear off in a second or two, and then they would kill him.

Cassian surged forward, ignoring the fuzziness of his adjusting vision, ignoring the ringing silence in his ear where Jyn’s voice had been, and lashed out with his elbow. He caught the first ‘trooper just under the edge of his helmet, the bone digging deep into the enemy’s soft undersuit over his larynx. The ‘trooper choked and dropped his rifle, flailing. Cassian ducked under a wildly swinging arm and rammed his shoulder into the second ‘trooper. His momentum threw them both back against the café, the ‘trooper’s shout cut off with a pained grunt as Cassian’s full weight drove him into the hard wall. He felt gauntleted hands scrabbling at the back of his jacket, trying to get a hold, and he threw himself back, twisting to break free. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of white lunging for him, and he dropped to one knee, blindly lashing out to the side with his fist. His blow glanced off an armored leg, but Cassian was fast and he was desperate. He grabbed, caught the edge of the enemy’s armor right along the knee, and yanked it as hard as he could. The ‘trooper stumbled as his leg twisted unnaturally to the side, and fell with a shout and a clatter of armor to the ground.

It all happened in a handful of seconds, but even that was an eternity when he had less than thirty before the EMP grenade’s effects wore off. And if those cameras came back online before he was gone, the ensuing manhunt would be swift, thorough, and deadly. He might never get off Kafrene. Worse, _Jyn_ might never get off Kafrene. Galen Erso would remain hidden away, the Empire would gain whatever hellish weapon they were building, and all Cassian’s promises would die with him.

Cassian lunged up to his feet and planted a solid kick in the gut of the ‘trooper closest to regaining his balance. The ‘trooper gasped and collapsed, but his armor was thick. He would be back up in a moment.

Cassian bolted for the far end of the alley, nearly skidding to his knees as he turned the corner into the back street and ran. His chest ached and there was a faint stitch in his side; he hadn’t been prepared to run like this, and worse, there was no good turn off in sight. What he had hoped would be more alleys leading back out into the main streets turned out to be small alcoves, just small depressions to store trash cans and various low-grade equipment, and the occasional cheap droid charging station. He ran past the back of shops and restaurants, darting around the handful of workers and homeless who shuffled out of his way with expressions first bewildered, then afraid – because behind him, he could already hear the pounding of booted feet. Mechanized voices buzzed like angry insects, more of them than he had left alive in the alley, and then, finally, a siren began to wail.

No, wait. Not a siren. A klaxon. A faint red light flashed from between two buildings, about twenty meters further down the alley.

Cassian sucked in as much air as he could and stretched his legs, flat out racing for the warning alarms and blinking lights of a Ring cross point.

Behind him, the dull roar of a distant TIE fighter, getting closer.

He rounded the corner, heart pounding, hoping for a big crowd. This was the Silver Ring, and a heavily populated metropolitan area at that, surely there would be -

Dead end.

The slick black plas-steel wall loomed high over his head between the buildings on either side, covered in faded graffiti. Over the top of it, red lights flashed, the klaxon mounted on the very top edge blared loud enough to drown out the ‘trooper footsteps behind him, and he could just make out the top of a cross-point guard station nestled against the other side of the wall.

Cassian stood in the fake alleyway, his heart thundering in his ears, his stomach sick. The dark surface of the wall gleamed faintly between the various garish colors of the graffiti, far too smooth to climb. _Onward and upward,_ an acid yellow scrawl mocked him. _You are what you do in the dark_ , spikey pink and purple letters jeered. _THE WALLS HAVE EYES_ bled a jerky red splatter. Below the bleeding words, a baleful red eye stared at him from the center of a large arrow full of arcane and unknowable symbols. Gang sign. Warnings. Insults. Cassian took in the rainbow of Kafrene’s silent screams with detached terror, his mind scrambling for something to latch on to, something to stop the death that he could feel bearing down on him now.

The klaxon was still blaring. Any second now, he would see one of the thin rings that locked the great Rings of Kafrene’s drill in place rising from the other side of the wall, allowing the Silver Ring to turn. Or perhaps it was the Gold Ring that turned, while the Silver remained still. Or they both turned, in opposite directions.

Scrambling. He was scrambling. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing to help. Just the mad terror of a rat in a trap.

On the other side of the wall, he could make out the babble of a crowd, waiting for the Ring to turn. Waiting for their lives to go on, exactly as they had been a few minutes ago.

He couldn’t hear the Stormtroopers pounding after him anymore, but he could feel the pulse in his skin, the shudder of his heartbeat.

The red eye in the graffiti stared at him. There was a curling wave just above it. Something that looked like fangs below. A Human heart to the right. Five slanted marks on the left.

The ‘troopers would try to take him alive. He had killed two, incapacitated three, and knocked out half the street’s power. He was clearly better trained and better armed than some common criminal. They would try to take him alive.

Abruptly, Cassian thought of a desert, of standing in the fading sunset and watching his recruits gather around a cluster of bodies, hidden under tarp. Jak Inkari leaned on Rodma Maddel’s shoulder, his great purple-furred head bowed. _Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,_ the big Lasat murmured, and Cassian knew _she_ was watching him, her face tense with grief, her eyes bright with what he dared to hope was…

 _To strive, to seek, to find,_ Inkari told him over the little covered bodies in the cold desert sand, _and not to yield._

Cassian pulled the blaster from his bag. There was no cover in the dead ended alley. There was not enough time to run back out and look for a better place to make his last stand. He would make it here, and he would go down firing.

The blaster fit into the palm of his hand like an old friend, comfortable and reliable. With his other hand, he touched his collar. Even if the blaster was torn from his hand, if all else failed, he would still never be taken alive. The tiny box sewn into the leather of the coat popped open under the pressure of his finger and –

And nothing.

Nothing fell out into his palm.

It was gone.

It was gone.

His Lullaby pill was _gone._

From a thousand frozen miles away, Cassian heard his own voice rasp under the blaring of the klaxon and the pounding of Imperial boots, “ _Jyn._ ”

“Cassian!”

His head jerked up almost without his conscious input, and there she was, perched on the top of the black wall. Her gloved hand stretched down to him, her eyes desperate and bright and impossible because how the hells did she get up there? How had no one in the crowd seen? No, they had seen, he could hear shouting on the other side of the wall, the whine of blasters charging.

She was going to get _shot._

“Here!” Jyn screamed at him over the klaxon, over the gunfire.

Cassian lunged upward, grabbing for her hand; there was no safety on the top of the wall but if they were going to die, Force damn him, he would at least be holding on to her. He could at least have that.

Jyn bypassed his hand, straining a little further down until her fingers clamped down over his elbow like iron. His mirrored her grip, holding her arm tight in his hand, his forearm pressed enough to hers that he could feel the outline of her hidden knife digging into his flesh. She shouted something he couldn’t hear over the thunder of boots behind him, over the scream of red blaster bolts now whistling through the air over her head. It didn’t matter. He had her. They were dead but he had her tight in his hand and he had done his best –

Jyn flew up into the air. Her grip on his arm yanked him up too, pain lancing through his shoulder as all his weight pulled on it, and he nearly lost his own hold in shock.

But Jyn’s right arm was stretched back over her head, a rope of some kind tethered between her and…

The ring.

The locking ring! It was lifting them away from the streets, and to his further astonishment, he saw that it was also slowly spinning as it rose, carrying them away from the increasingly distant blaster shots and blaring alarms.

A series of stunned curses jumbled in Cassian’s head, but before he could sort them out, Jyn turned her head away to look up at the rope connecting her to the thin ring as it rose up from the streets, higher and higher towards the top of the hulking black buildings. He saw her twist her wrist slowly, working against her own weight – and his – until the rope unraveled from her arm and they dropped –

Cassian landed gracelessly on side, the force of the drop wrenching Jyn out of his hand and throwing him several feet away. He rolled onto his back, his whole body aching and shuddering from the sheer terror of the last...ten minutes? Had it even been that long since he walked down the side alley? Fuck, it felt like hours.

Jyn.

He pushed himself to his knees, and found that he was kneeling on a black rooftop, a creaky holonet receiver jutting out from the slate a few steps away, a few laundry-lines with damp blankets and shirts obscuring his vision to either side. Jyn was on her hands and knees nearby, and Cassian pushed aside the rest of his incoherent thoughts to scramble to her side.

“I’m okay,” she gasped when he brushed his hands gently over her shoulders, checking for damage. To his intense relief, she rolled her shoulders easily under his hands, but then she grunted and hunched over, cradling her right arm. “’s okay,” she repeated, bowing her head until her forehead hit his heaving chest. Cassian realized he had latched on to her upper arms, startled by her subdued cry of pain. He forced himself to let go, checking up and down her arms as carefully as he could. “It’s okay. Just strained it.”

Her body under his hands was warm, and he couldn’t see or smell any blood. No scorching blaster wounds, no limbs at an awkward, broken angle. She was okay, he told himself fiercely. She said she was okay, and he believed her. He was physically unhurt, too, aside from a mild throb in his shoulder. They were alive, they had escaped. In the distance, even the klaxons were now silent, and the roar of the TIE fighter fading. The TIE had gone the wrong way, he realized, probably lost them when the ring turned and the ‘troopers on the ground started giving conflicting directions to the pilot. Or maybe the pilot had simply not believed the ‘troopers when they tried to describe what the crazy rebel woman had done. Cassian wasn’t completely sure he believed it, either, and he’d been there.

“Alright?” Jyn asked, and he looked back down to see her lift her head, her face flushed and her eyes wide. Strands of sweat-soaked hair stuck to her cheeks, and a streak of grease ran down her neck. The sleeve of her right arm was covered in what looked like melted patches and burns, as if that odd rope had been electrified. Belatedly he realized that it probably had, that the low-grade electric shock had been keeping her grip tight around the rope even as both her body weight and his own pulled on her.

Another series of jumbled, unfinished curses tangled in his thoughts. She could have killed herself with that trick, had some kind of heart attack or sustained horrible third degree burns. She could have been shot. They could both have died on that wall – or over it – or -

Cassian crushed her tight against his body, pressing his lips to her throat over her pulse and breathing her in. She wiggled her arm out from between them and returned the embrace just as fiercely, though her right arm felt stiff and shaky against his ribs.

“Cassian,” Jyn breathed against his shoulder, her hands tight on the back of his jacket.

He closed his eyes, let the relief wash through him.

Then he pulled back, and let the rage ice his voice over. “You took my pill.”

Jyn went still in his arms.

Then, quietly, “Yes.”

He dropped his arms from around her, but didn’t pull back, didn’t stand up. He didn’t know if his legs would support him if he tried it. He hunted for the words, but they had abandoned him completely, leaving him with nothing but the exhausted, furious, terrified, “ _Why?_ ”

Jyn’s balance, it turned out, was just fine. She pushed back up to her feet and stepped back enough to glare down at him. “Answer me this, first,” she snarled back. “ _Why_ were you reaching for it?”

The ice in his chest crackled around the edges, his arms and hands felt frozen now as the adrenaline and terror began to wear off. He climbed gracelessly to his own feet, shoved his cold fingers into his pockets, and grit his teeth against the words that formed in his mind. They stabbed at his throat and tongue, shards of bitter cold; _you had no right to steal that from me, did you even consider how much danger you put us in, how much danger you put the Alliance in?_ _Would you rather I be tortured?_

But the desperate need to say the words made him hold them back all the harder, because words had power. Words once spoken in anger could never be unspoken, and he hadn’t been this angry, this blindly furious, since…since…

He couldn’t remember. He didn’t _care_. She had stolen his Lullaby, and then she had nearly died to save him, and he was so fucking angry he couldn’t think straight, let alone trust himself to speak.

Jyn, on the other hand, had no such reservations.

“Five minutes,” she snapped. “It took me _five minutes_ to get to you, and you were reaching for the fucking thing.” She jabbed a finger at his collar, stepping close, too close, glowering up at him as she seethed openly. Cassian stood still, refusing to flinch back, allowing himself to loom up over her. He was taller than her by nearly twenty centimeters, and he made no effort to mitigate it. “You didn’t even look around.” Jyn’s jaw was set, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed with rage. “I was almost there. I was coming for you.” Her voice dropped into a deadly murmur, but there was no submission in her quiet tone. He could hear the tension coiling like a sheecas-snake about to strike, see the way her body shifted into a battle stance. “You didn’t even _look_ ,” she hissed.

She thought he had meant to take the pill, he realized with cold clarity. That he had run into a dead end and simply given up. Did she truly think so little of him? Did she not know him any better than that?

Well, and how could she? They had been partners less than two months. The knowledge crystallized in his gut; she didn’t know what he had been thinking in the alley, and she assumed the worst about him. Of course she did. He was an idiot to think that because she smiled at him and held him and understood what he wanted done on a mission, that somehow this translated to knowing him. Somehow, despite all his training and experience, he had allowed himself to buy into a series of romantic notions, and now it had come back to bite him. Cassian closed his eyes. Re-calibrate, he told himself sternly. Breathe in, breathe out, focus. What is important right now, this very moment? _We need to get off the roof. We need to get back to the ship. We need to check for any tails, traces, or manhunt bulletins that might lead to us._

This discussion could wait. They had work to do.

Cassian opened his eyes.

Jyn was watching him, intent.

“If you can’t trust me,” he told her firmly, holding his voice as steady as a commanding officer should, “then we are done.”

Jyn jerked back as if he had slapped her, the angry flush draining. Cassian blinked, startled by the violent reaction, and then too late did he realize what that had sounded like, what she might take it to mean. Jyn spun on her heel and put her back to him before he could open his fool mouth and clarify – _the mission, I meant the mission, we would be have to call it off and leave Kafrene, I meant_ _the_ mission _–_ but before he could force a sound through his suddenly numb lips, Jyn shrugged and strode across the rooftop, vanishing from his sight around the holonet receiver.

“Door’s here,” she called back in a tight, toneless voice.

Cassian lunged after her, but she was through the door and already winding down the stairs to the ground level. “Hey,” he called, half-running to catch her. “Wait, J-“ he caught himself a moment before he shouted out her real name, but his head was too much of a mess to remember which false one she was using, so he was reduced to calling again, desperately, “ _wait!”_

“Oh, excuse me,” a Tarnab mumbled, shuffling to the side of the stairs as Cassian careened around the corner. She stared at him with wide dark eyes and her beard quivering with confusion and surprise, and Cassian swallowed and composed his face, slowing his mad rush to catch up with Jyn, who was now about three levels below him on the winding stair case.

“Sorry,” he muttered at the Tarnab, turning to brush past her. He could feel her staring at his back as he hurried down the steps. He was making a scene. Dangerous, when the ‘troopers might be broadcasting his face around the city. If he was lucky, the EMP grenade had destroyed the recorded images in the helmets of the ‘troopers who accosted him. If he was unlucky…

Jyn was walking briskly down the street when he finally caught up to her. He had to strain to pull even to her side, and then cut his stride short to match hers – or try to match hers. He couldn’t seem to get the pace right; she was either pulling ahead of him or lagging behind. It occurred to him that he had never had to struggle to match her like this before. He had never felt so out of sync with her.

She didn’t look up at him, her face set in a wary mask as she scanned the street, the crowd, the oppressive black upside-down city hanging over their heads. Everywhere but him.

It took them almost two hours to cross through the Copper Ring to the Steel Ring, another hour to reach the Lumina Docks, and then came the long, grinding ride in the poorly maintained elevator up to where the _Malta_ was tucked back in the far corner, easily overlooked in the dim light of the cheapest docking bay.

They never spoke a word. She never looked at him.

Cassian waited until the cargo hatch of the Malta had completely ground to a close behind him, and then he shut his eyes, took a deep breath in. His thoughts were still chaotic, anger and fear and a dozen other things he couldn’t name all jostling together in his head. He couldn’t prioritize which he needed to address first, which were his real feelings and which were just the remnants of adrenaline from the escape.

There was only one thing he was sure of: he needed to fix this, right now.

Cassian exhaled, and opened his eyes.

Jyn kissed him.

He froze in surprise, but she didn’t seem to notice, or mind. Her hands were soft on either side of his face, soft but insistent, pulling him down so she could press her lips gently against his. Her eyes were closed, her lashes stark against her cheeks, and a lock of dark hair fell across her forehead. Slowly, not entirely sure what he was doing, or if he was allowed, Cassian traced a finger from her temple to her ear, pushing the lock of hair out of her face. Jyn responded beautifully, her body pulling close to his and curving to fit into him, her thumbs stroking along his cheekbones and then down his jaw.

Cassian felt the tension of the last hour draining from his shoulders and down his spine, replaced with a strange mix of relief and exhaustion. The clamor of uncertainty in his head faded, the ice in his chest seemed to recede. He raised his hands lightly, cautiously, and when she didn’t shake him off or pull away, he stroked his palms up and then down her back.

Jyn pressed another soft kiss to his lips, then tilted her head and kissed his cheek, his forehead, then one more gentle, undemanding press to his mouth.

“Jyn,” he murmured against her lips, but didn’t protest when she pulled back, settling on her heels with her head bent. She kept her eyes closed, simply standing within the loose circle of his arms, her hands cupped tenderly around his face.

“What now?” Her voice was so low that if he had been any further away, he wouldn’t have been able to make out the words.

The small bubble of peace she had made around them was fragile, but it gave Cassian just enough room to step back and look at himself. He was still angry, still afraid, still…still so many things. He had made mistake after mistake today, and he had no idea how bad any of those blunders really were.

He needed to get his head on straight, before he fucked up beyond recovery.

“Space,” he said at last, because that’s what they needed. A little space, to calm down. Then they could talk. Jyn nodded as if she had expected that, her eyes still closed. Cassian told himself not to be relieved that she seemed in sync with him again, because that was…that was walking down a dangerous path, and he knew better. “I’m going to run some scans on the ‘net and local channels, see if we’re blown.”

“Okay,” Jyn said, and her voice was almost normal now, as if this were a normal conversation about work, as she wasn’t still standing with her head bowed and her eyes closed while he fought to steady his shaking hands against her back. “I’ve got something to check, too.”

He waited a moment to see if she would elaborate, but when she stayed silent, he let it go. Most likely, it was a follow up on the La Kai family, on Riggers’ schedule or Yunas’ service record. Kafrene was covered in stormtroopers and TIE patrols, but it was not a bastion of cyber-security. Too many civilian systems tied in with the Imperial Army’s databases. Someone with Jyn’s level of skill could run rampant through their systems without leaving a trace.

“Okay,” he said at last, and impulsively leaned forward to press his forehead to hers. She leaned into it, just a little, but it was enough. He let go, stepped back, and walked around her towards their cabin. Behind him, he heard Jyn pacing toward the front of the ship, probably to settle in the cockpit to work. Giving them space.

Cassian closed the door to their cabin behind him, then after a brief hesitation, locked it. Then he picked up Jyn’s pack and sat down on the bed, holding it between his knees.

She had stolen his Lullaby, and then folded his clothes to cover her actions. He almost smiled as he thought about it, because that should have been the sign that she was up to something. Jyn never folded clothes, but he had turned around to find her carefully draping his jacket over a neat stack of his clothes, and he hadn’t even thought to wonder why. And then she had rummaged in her pack for far too long, rearranging the contents. Hiding the pill.

She’d meant to protect him, perhaps. Cassian was not a man who believed that intentions excused actions, but…but it had to count. That she had wanted to save him, even as she condemned him. That she cared enough to try to save him.

He flipped the bag open and pushed aside her clothes. The pack was standard issue on Yavin IV, and it was cut in such a way that the seam along the bottom folded over into an unintentional little pocket. Cassian had hidden several small objects in the seam fold of his own bag; if he were seeking to hide something small like a pill, that was where he would put it.

His fingers closed over the little round shape almost immediately. She’d put it in the exact place he would have chosen. He didn’t let himself think about it.

He pulled the Lullaby free, a tiny, innocuous red oval sitting in the center of his palm.

Bitter memory flooded the back of his tongue, _gravel digging into his knee, his rifle in his cold hands, green eyes in his scope, dark pit opening in his heart._

_She was pinned awkwardly on her knees, stormtroopers wrenching both her arms back at painful angles, but she met his eyes squarely across the chaos of the landing pad, saw his rifle, saw his face._

_And she nodded._

It haunted his nightmares, that nod. That acceptance. That _permission_. He had his finger on the trigger and she nodded to him. He would give…he wasn’t sure what he would give to never find himself looking at Jyn’s face as she accepted her death. He suspected it was more than he should.

Cassian clenched his fist around the Lullaby.

He understood. She was still wrong, but he understood.

He tucked the pill back into his collar, felt the weight settle in place, and then picked up his datapad. He would sweep for any sign that the Empire knew their faces or where they had gone, and then he would go back out to the cockpit and talk to Jyn. He would find the right words, even if he had to dig them out of the deepest, most disused cobwebbed corner of his soul. He would find the words for her.

Cassian opened his datapad and began running through the local networks. A news bulletin about a “possible rebel action” in the Silver Ring, but most broadcasts seemed to believe that the incident in the Silver Ring had been just local criminal action. Apparently there was no good footage of Jyn riding the ring out of danger, because several of the bulletins labelled it a “rumor” or “wild tale.” Still, Cassian was meticulous, and thorough. A careful search for the name “Tyree” called up a short report to the local security station, because that had been the last scandocs entered into the system before the EMP knocked out the message traffic from the patrol. Alright, Tyree was probably burned, but he would replace that ident with a different back up.

He was so absorbed in his work, he never even noticed when the datapad slipped from his hand.

When Cassian woke up, slumped uncomfortably against the back of the bunk with his neck aching and a cold line of drool in the corner of his mouth, the cabin was lit only by the dim yellow security screens against the wall. He blinked and swiped at his mouth, groaning as he sat upright, his spine creaking and popping in protest. The chrono in the corner of the screen told him it was… _shit_ , it was the start of the morning cycle. He had passed out for _hours._

And woken alone.

Cassian felt his guts twist. No, no it was fine. She probably just looked in the cabin to find him sprawled like an idiot, and decided to stay in the cockpit rather than wake him up. Or maybe she had been exhausted too, worn from the mission and the escape and their personal problems. She might be curled in the pilot’s chair even now. He frowned – it was colder in the cockpit than the rest of the ship, and there was no way the pilot’s chair was any more comfortable than, well, how he had been sleeping.

He rubbed at his neck ruefully and forced himself to walk the short corridor to the cockpit. She might not like it, but he could herd her into the bed and talk her into getting at least a few hours of proper sleep before they had to head back out to meet the La Kai family.

It took him a confused few seconds to realize that she wasn’t in the cockpit.

It took him several uncertain minutes to confirm that she wasn’t in the ‘fresher, or the galley, or the cargo bay.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to understand that Jyn wasn’t on the ship at all.

 

She was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Star Spear Festival’ is based on the real world Thaipusam festival, something I had the fortune of observing in Kuala Lumpur once. More on that next chapter.


	7. Day 8: Communications, Section I

**[Pyrite Plaza, Osmium Sector, The Silver Ring, Resh District]**

She wasn’t gone.

Cassian latched on to that thought as he pushed through the afternoon crowds of the Copper Ring. Jyn wasn’t gone. She had slipped out for a reconnaissance check. She had decided to make a quick supply run. She had made quick detour for...something. She had done those things before, a few times in their brief partnership (if he was allowed to use that word).

A passing Kafrene local smacked their shoulder so hard against his that Cassian jerked and nearly lost his footing. He caught himself and pushed on, not bothering to look back. His current scandocs were still in his pocket, and no sticky fingers had brushed against his concealed blaster. Just a commuter in a rush, then, not a pickpocket.

She wasn’t gone. She was probably already setting up at the meeting place, looking for a good vantage point amongst all the crowds. (He asked for space. He hadn’t meant to ask for so _much_ of it.) The crosspoint between Copper Ring and Silver Ring blared with klaxons, the locking ring spinning lazily up towards the black upside-down city of the Osk district. Cassian watched the locking ring rise and blur against the dark background, and for a disorienting moment he imagined Jyn standing on the opposite half of the city, her head craned back as she looked up (although from his viewpoint it was _down_ ) at him, like she might plummet towards him from the wrong-way-up city. More fitting, of course, if he should be the one to fall. (It was a long way to go. So much space between the two halves of the city.)

The locking ring dropped, the klaxons faded, the crowd surged, and Cassian was yanked back into the proper gravitational orientation as it carried him forward. A small child ran into his thigh, knocking him askew as something sharp jabbed into his hip. A scolding parent pulled the child back, and Cassian caught sight of the youngling waving a small metal skewer with a cheap bit of quartz glued awkwardly to one end. (Cassian had initially mistaken Jyn’s kyber necklace for quartz. Her white-knuckled reaction to his gaze falling on the thing had startled him – but before he could figure it out, she had leaned up and pulled him down and -) The parent pointed at Cassian sternly, the child waved their little stick at him and stuck out their lower lip as they presumably muttered an apology, and Cassian lifted a hand in polite acceptance.

A flash of glinting stars on dark cloth just over the parent’s shoulder – a shawl worn by an aging Icarii, decorated in shimmering symbols for various minerals.

Cassian turned his face away and stalked through the crosspoint.

Three Stormtroopers stood on guard under the now-silent klaxon horns. Cassian kept his face neutral and his eyes forward. Over the nearest trooper’s helmet, a flashing memo scrolled across the Public Notice board. _WANTED: Human, male, adult. Known alias: Harrod Tyree._ No head scan floated over the name. No biometric data. Cassian's EMP grenade had scrambled the troopers’ commlinks before the full scandoc information could download to their nearest security station. Obviously the Tyree ident was burned, but he had prepped for that. He could operate without Tyree.

The crowds around him tightened, barely any space to move (he’d only wanted a little space).

He caught a glimpse of dark brown hair – she turned and it was a Human he had never seen with a decorative silver ear cuff that trailed tinkling chains to the rod pinned through her nose. The stranger was watching a tall Tholothian brandished a gleaming metal skewer in one dark brown hand, a large showy piece of quartz in the other. The performer turned the skewer towards her face, and with a piercing, theatrical yell, rammed it through her cheek. A drop of purplish blood swelled around the puncture, and then the Tholothian pulled it cleanly out with a flourish and not even the slightest grimace. Her many dark lekku swirled around her head as she spun in place, shouting again, the quartz flashing in Kafrene’s yellow light. When Cassian could see her face clearly again, he noticed the smattering of pale brown marks across the Tholothian’s cheeks – tiny, round scars. Relics of previous performances, no doubt.

Cassian had spent a little time last night researching the Star Spear Festival, so theoretically he was prepared for the spectacle. Reading about it in cultural prep briefs was one thing, however.  Actually seeing it was entirely different. He veered away from the Tholothian, and carefully set his path towards the main thoroughfare of the Pyrite Plaza. (The performer had barely bled when she stabbed herself. Cassian had expected more blood. That probably said something dark about him.)

The Plaza was ringed with glowing holoscreens almost as tall as the looming black buildings, all shimmering and buzzing with larger-than-life holoprojections of local celebrities, bands slated to play on the nearby giant stage, advertisements for various shops and products, and of course, Safety Messages from the Imperial Security Force. The neon colors of the flashing signs, the bellowing of the excited festival crowd, the thick aroma of fried foods and alien body odor – Cassian’s head ached under the sensory onslaught.

Someone pushed past him, her shoulder dragging across his chest as she moved across his path, her fly-away brown hair passing just under his chin. Cassian’s step hitched, the woman glanced up at him indifferently, and his jaw tightened as he forced himself to stop walking just enough to let the stranger pass. She nodded at him in the absent way of strangers in a crowded space, then vanished into the crowd. Probably forgot his face the moment it left her sight (a good thing, that was a good thing, he was forgettable and forgotten, and safer for everyone if he stayed that way).

(Better that way.)

A gaggle of adolescents rushed past him, chattering and wrapping colorful but cheaply-made glowbands around their various limbs. A vendor nearby seemed to be selling the bands, more and more people beginning to glow softly in a neon rainbow around him. One of the larger holoscreens overhead suddenly strobed in white and red, and then a giant countdown clock began to tick down from an Imperial standard hour, racing towards zero. One of the Festivals biggest shows would start soon. A lot of noise and dramatic performances on the stage would be excellent cover for a clandestine conversation with his mark (and her family, but he cut that part of the thought cleanly off and discarded it).

Another dancer nearby, a Twi’lek with glowbands wrapped in pink and blue stripes down his lekku, raised a metal skewer with a glimmering quartz tip and dramatically punctured it through his lower lip with a fierce battle-cry. The skewer was made of some reflective kind of metal, so in the many lights of the Plaza it seemed to glow like a small but fiery sword. Some of the crowd cheered or hissed in sympathetic pain, others bowed or made respectful gestures. The Twi’lek pulled the skewer free and leaped into the air, glowing lekku and metal-studded robes flying. Cassian turned away.

( _The dangerous woman scowled as a group of robed Humans carrying what looked like large, wicked spears came striding out of a smoke-den in a cloud of purple haze. The spearmen swerved toward them to avoid a trio of beggers, nearly knocking Cassian into her. She steadied him with a hand to the elbow, and he smiled, rolling his eyes at the oblivious men. “This is mad,” she told him, sounding ready to fight the entirety of Jedha just to get a little breathing room. He wondered if she would. Her hand jerked away from his elbow a moment later, and if Cassian were less astute, he might have missed the brief blush that colored her cheeks before fading again. No Coruscanti hitman ever blushed, and if she was trying to seduce him, her awkward inability to pretend at the most basic physical interactions was…an unusual tactic. The longer he spent with her, the less she seemed like one of the bloodied killers of La Brutalidad. So when she dragged him into the Paths of Judgement with a determined gleam in her eye…he followed willingly.)_

(That probably said something about him, too.)

Across the teeming throughway, he caught sight of two sets of bright green hair, an adult and a child. He slipped through the crowd, and found them - the La Kai family. They were crowded around a vendor displaying various bits of metallic or stone jewelry. As Cassian drew close, Security Officer Yunas lifted a strand of greenish uncut stones and held it up to her spouse’s neck. Diona Riggers smiled as the little girl she held patted the necklace and said something approving. Cassian waited until they bought the necklace, keeping himself tucked into the crowd as Yunas clasped the gift around Rigger’s throat and the little girl kissed her mother’s cheek. He gave them a few moments more to be happy, to feel safe. (It wasn’t real, they were in danger from more than just him, but let them feel it. Let them pretend a little longer.)

Over their heads, the countdown clock ticked to fifty-three minutes.

The family turned away from the vendor, and Cassian stepped out of the crowd.

Yunas saw him first, her eyes narrowing as she recognized the purpose in his step, the way he was clearly angling to intercept her trajectory. But she didn’t know who he was, not until Riggers looked up from her daughter’s face to see his. She paled and stepped a little closer to Yunas, her hands tightening on her little girl’s back. Her eyes turned wary, her face grim as she watched the threat to her family approach.

A spike of pain lanced through Cassian’s chest, thin and needle-sharp, as if one of the dancers had spun close and stabbed their skewer through him. He shrugged it off. (He always did.)

Just before he reached them, Cassian dropped his shoulders back and down, let his hands hang openly at his sides, relaxed his face. He kept his expression serious, because it was clear by their body language that any attempt to act like he was their friend would make both adults bristle. The children didn’t seem to notice him yet, but speaking to them directly first would also come across as a threat to the parents. So he made himself as non-threatening as he could, and nodded politely as he came within speaking range. “La Kai Yunas,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“So I’ve heard.” She and Riggers exchanged a speaking glance over the little girl’s head. He could see a whole conversation happen in that brief moment, in the way Yunas pulled her young son’s hand enough to steer him towards Riggers, in the way Riggers leaned her head a little closer to her spouse as they shifted. Yunas stepped out towards and in between him and her family, Riggers drew both children close to her body. The daughter wriggled and protested, trying to see a nearby juggler, but the son turned quiet and watchful, leaning his head against his mother’s arm.

“Well?” Yunas asked, squaring herself up and bracing her feet. Cassian suppressed a sigh. If anyone was watching, this would obviously read as a confrontation. He glanced at the crowd, then tilted his head towards another nearby food vendor.

“I’m a bit hungry,” he lied easily. “Are you?” He turned on his heel without waiting for a response and headed for the vendor. He didn’t need to look back to know that Yunas hesitated, and then strode after him. When he reached the queue for the food, he was a little surprised to see that Riggers had followed too, her kids in tow. They got into the line behind him, Riggers meeting his eye and jutting her chin out.

“The kids love _batata_ ,” she told him, as if throwing a gauntlet in his face.

Before he could reply, the little girl twisted in her mother’s arms and announced loudly, “I want a spicy one!” She then paused, clearly waiting for something.

Riggers cleared her throat, looked from Cassian to the girl, hesitating.

The little girl frowned reprovingly, displeased at the missed cue. “I want a spicy one,” she repeated.

Riggers seemed to give up. “A _super_ spicy one?”

The child beamed, her world restored to rights. “A _super dooper_ spicy one.”

She then looked to Yunas, whose lips tightened, but then she said her line of the script. “A _really super dooper_ spicy one?”

The little girl laughed. “A _really super dooper special_ spicy one!”

The boy looked up, and for a moment his exasperation with adults and little sisters won out over his wariness of the stranger. “Every time,” he complained to Cassian. “Kiri doesn’t even _like_ spicy stuff.”

“I like it!” His sister exclaimed. “I like it so much!”

“You do not.”

“Do too!”

“Every time,” Riggers said to Yunas, laughing quietly and mussing her son’s hair with her free hand.

Cassian caught the smile tugging at his face and tucked it away again. He was not their friend. He didn’t get to laugh at their family jokes. Yunas certainly wouldn’t appreciate any sign of mockery, either.

Besides, this was a good opening. “You eat _batata_ a lot at home?”

The humor vanished from Yunas’ face. “Sometimes.”

Cassian nodded thoughtfully and scanned the crowd with a faintly glazed expression, as if this was all just small talk with some nice strangers while waiting in the queue for festival food. “Your spouse ever pack any in your lunch?”

The silence felt brittle, dangerous. Cassian kept his eyes on the crowd, his body relaxed. A patrol of Stormtroopers moved around the edges of the crowd to the north. Another walked freely through the center of the Plaza, people crushing up close to make room for their passage. The benefit of the white armor, Cassian mused; never having to push your way through a crowd.

 “Sometimes,” Yunas repeated at last. The person in front of Cassian in the queue stepped up to order. To their left, the countdown clock dropped to forty-seven minutes.

“Nice of her, to bring them to you at work,” Cassian continued, careful to keep his voice even and bland as possible. Not too cold, not too intense. Not a threat, just an observation. Then he went for the strike. “Pity she can’t bring them in to you at the desk.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both Riggers and Yunas grimace, but he didn’t wait for a response. The person in front of him moved away from the booth with their hands full of fried food, and Cassian stepped up and smoothly ordered a skewer of grilled meat that he was reasonably sure was Chandrilan poultry. He waited while the La Kai family ordered four plates of deep fried tubers, Riggers distracting the little girl while Yunas asked the vendor in a low voice to make one of them completely without spice. When they all had their food, he set a slow, wandering pace along the south side of the Plaza, away from the stage and the worst of the crowd. The little girl attacked her food with gusto, the boy took tiny, measured bites, and the parents mouthed at it with vague disinterest, their real attention focused on him. Cassian made a point of eating his meat skewer as if he were really just another festival-goer, enjoying his meal.

Finally, Yunas’ patience seemed to snap. “What do you want?”

Cassian bit the last of the meat from the skewer and chewed thoughtfully, pretending to enjoy it. It was decent enough, but the words gathering on his tongue dissolved the taste of the food in the acid of his life. He swallowed and flipped the now empty skewer absently around his fingers. “Access.”

“I’m not helping you bomb the building,” Yunas told him flatly, and Cassian winced before he could stop himself. That was even more direct than he had been expecting, and she’d made only minimal effort to lower her voice. Her daughter, now loudly struggling against her mother’s arms and demanding she be set down to walk on her own, didn’t notice at all. The boy was clearly straining to hear, but hadn’t picked up on what she said. Cassian flipped the skewer again and then tossed it into a nearby bin to buy himself a moment.

“I have no intention of harming anyone,” he said as softly as possible over the crowd. “And I’m not asking you to help out of the goodness of your heart.”

Yunas shuffled closer and leaned in, glowering. “No, you scared the shit out of my spouse and now you’re following me around. You’re _asking_ _me to help_ ,” her voice turned sour, “out of my need to protect my family.”

A woman in a dark scarf in the corner of his eye – ah, no, a Krish carefully rearranging her head scarf to cover her crest. Cassian mentally shook himself and refocused. For a brief moment, he considered lying, considered trying to somehow work his way into his mark’s good graces, make her feel like, if not a friend, at least an ally. But he had no time.

“Yes,” he said, simple and honest. “But not necessarily from me.”

“Not from – what are you talking about?” Yunas snorted, but he could see the uneasy tension around her eyes. She might not be good at clandestine meetings or double-speak conversations, but Yunas was smart and she was experienced enough to guess at where he was leading her. Some part of her already agreed with him, or she wouldn’t have come to meet him at all. Still, she tried to brazen it out. “You’re the only threat I see.”

Cassian pointed to the ‘trooper patrol still pacing easily through the corridor that opened before them in the crowd. His path had arced around until they were directly in front of the patrol. In a few minutes, the ‘troopers would pass by them, and they would have to make space or suffer the consequences. “Have Diona ask them for help.”

Yunas froze, her eyes wide.

“She can tell them she’s the legal spouse of a Security Officer,” he went on, calm and bland and utterly ruthless. “Regulations require that they respond to any citizen in distress, but a family member of one of their own always takes priority.” He watched Yunas’ face as her lips whitened. The countdown clock ticked to twenty-seven minutes. More glowbands appeared in the crowd around him, adults and children alike preparing for the big show. Yunas’ eyes were glued to the ‘troopers, moving slowly closer. He almost had her.

Cassian stuck his hands loosely in his jacket pockets and tilted his head, and went for the last strike. “Perhaps she can say her daughter isn’t feeling well and she needs an aid station.”

The security officer’s eyes darted to her family nearby, as Riggers finally relented and let her daughter down, brushing crumbs from her face and attempting to neaten her messy green hair. Her inhuman, halfbreed hair.

The crowd around them began to shuffle to the sides. Cassian kept his eyes on Yunas as he stepped back, making way. Yunas seemed to jolt awake at the last second, jerking back to the opposite side of the opening corridor, towards her family. Riggers shuffled to meet her, their shoulders touching, her hands on her children. The ‘troopers began to pass between them, slow and measured in their patrol pace, rifles held at the correct angle in their armored hands. Across the white armor, Yunas looked up and met Cassian’s gaze. He raised an eyebrow, looked deliberately at her spouse, then the ‘troopers, then came back to his mark.

She didn’t move.

When the ‘troopers passed, just before the crowd surged back to close the gap in their wake, he saw her hand clutched tight around Rigger’s wrist.

_(“I’m glad you’re not really a Joreth,” Jyn muttered in his arms, her back warm against his chest, her heartbeat soothing after the terror of his nightmare. “He wasn’t really a good guy.”_

_“And you think,” he grated back, bitter and angry and just a tiny bit hopeful, “I am?”_ )

 Cassian swallowed.

 _(“Whatever the Imperials are cooking up in their weapons department,” Draven shook his head in the dim light of the Command Center, the dark circles under his eyes stark, “it’s a killer, Andor.”_ )

He moved back in towards the family, his eyes steady on Yunas’ face. “I think you understand better than you like, Security Guard Yunas.”

Riggers, who clearly hadn’t heard the earlier piece of the conversation, looked startled and confused. But Yunas turned to watch the patrolling ‘troopers moving farther away into the crowd, her face grim. The countdown clock ticked to twenty minutes. A loud gong rang out, and the stage went totally dark. The crowd cheered, and more glowbands began to shine. The dancers with the skewers seemed to have vanished from their small performance areas.

“I need access,” he said again. “And you need to protect your family.”

“I do,” she agreed in a low voice. Riggers shifted uncomfortably, her hand on her spouse’s lower back. Their son still had a tight grip on his mother’s hand, his face scrunched up as he tried to work out what was happening and why his parents were so upset. The little girl –

Bright green hair, moving fast. Cassian snapped his head to look, just in time to see the child darting through a forest of legs to see a performing juggler. One of the people in the crowd turned, reached out, and caught the girl by the arm.

Cassian was moving before she fully jerked to a halt. Behind him, he heard Riggers shout, _“Kiri!”_ He knew without checking that they were both now pushing towards the little girl and her captor. But the crowd must have cut them off, because Cassian got there first, just as she looked up at the man holding her arm. The little girl’s lip quivered, her eyes were wide and uncertain.

“Hey now,” the man was saying as Cassian strode up. “Aren’t you La Kai’s kid?” His smile was pleasant, but Cassian could pick out the edge in his voice, the faint hint of a sneer.

“Kiri,” Cassian said sternly. “I told you to wait for me.” The girl looked up at him, and close up he could see that she was leaning her tiny weight back against the grip on her arm, and the skin on her arm by his fingers was just a little bit too pale. He looked up at the man, a middle-aged Human with sandy hair cut into a regulation style. “Thanks for catching her,” he said politely, and crouched down. “Come on, you little escape artist,” he held his hand out. “Time to go back to your mothers.”

He deliberately ignored the man’s clear hesitation, the slow beat before he opened his hand and let the child’s arm drop. Cassian kept his eyes on the girl and his face as calm and friendly as he could. If he was lucky, she would grab his hand and he could walk her back. Unlucky, and she would burst into tears, but at least she wouldn’t go anywhere until her parents arrived to soothe her. And she wouldn’t have her arm trapped in an Imperial’s grip (if this man wasn’t directly employed by the Empire in some way, Cassian would enroll himself in the next Alliance Intelligence operative class back at base with all the rest of the raw recruits).

His thoughts abruptly cut off when the little girl barreled at full speed into his chest, her chubby arms clutched around his neck uncomfortably tight. He picked her up as smoothly as he could, trying to disguise his awkward surprise. _This is a normal situation,_ he broadcasted with his body language. _She knows me and I pick her up all the time._ He made a point of giving the Imperial a distracted half smile, as if thanking him, and then turned quickly away.

Riggers appeared from the crowd and held out her arms. “Kiri, Mommy said _no running off!_ ” She said sharply, her pale face offsetting the green tint around her eyes even more distinctly than usual.

Cassian leaned over to allow her to take the child – who buried her face in Cassian’s shoulder and clung all the tighter. _She knows she’s in trouble_ , a small wry voice muttered in the back of his head, _and you gave her somewhere to hide_. The problem was…he had no idea how to dislodge her without hurting her. This was not, in any way, a normal situation.

“La Kai Shanna Kiri,” Riggers snapped. “Come here right now."

“Nmf,” the little girl mumbled against his heavy jacket, her little fingers latching on the back of his collar.

“Kiri don’t be annoying,” the boy snapped. “Mom said come back.”

“ _Nmf,”_ the girl retorted with greater emphasis, shaking her head. Or wiping her nose on his shoulder. He wasn’t entirely sure.

“Ugh, _Kiri_ , you’re such a _baby,_ ” the boy groaned.

“Oba, please. Let me handle this.” Riggers’ face was an odd mix of exasperation, fear, and uncertainty. Cassian struggled for a solution to the problem, but this was far out of his field of experience. Best course of action was simply to stand still and let the mother handle things.

“Yunas,” the Imperial drawled behind him as the child’s other parent arrived.

“Clayton,” she replied, and the chilly edge in her tone made Cassian’s muscles tense. It was clear that Yunas did not like this man.

“Who’s this, Yunas?” The Imperial’s tone had definitely changed when Yunas arrived, turning cheerful and patronizing. Cassian recognized it; this was a man who would call himself Yunas’ friend while loudly and gleefully bringing up her every failure or weakness in public or in front of her commanding officers, and then pretend to be hurt if she responded negatively. He was an _only trying to help_ type, an _I’m just being honest_ man.

“This is…” Yunas hesitated, and Cassian turned his body partially back towards them, not enough for the Imperial to get a good look at him again, but enough to show that he was making a vague effort at social niceties. The child clinging to his neck made for an excellent excuse not to fully engage with the Imperial. He was busy, after all, dealing with a recalcitrant little girl and her frustrated mother. Too busy to chat. “Friend of the family,” Yunas finally muttered. “Uh, Barris, this is Clayton Shaner Ile. We work together.” She placed heavy emphasis on the last three words, and then stepped between them, shielding him further from Security Officer Shaner Ile’s view.

“Kiri,” Riggers sighed. “Please let go of…let _Mister Barris_ go, okay? Come over here. I’m not mad.”

“ _Nmf wnff_ ,” came the muffled response from Cassian’s collarbone.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Shaner Ile called over Yunas' shoulder. Cassian nodded in his direction.

“If I just pull her off,” Riggers muttered, sounding equal parts anxious and irritated, “she will probably scream. It’s just…she’s a toddler. They have a tendency to…it’s a phase.”

Cassian nodded vaguely to her, too. This whole encounter had spun a little off the rails, and frankly, he was not entirely certain how to pull it back. Probably should start with dislodging the little one from his neck. Somehow.

“Having a good time?” Shaner Ile was saying off to the side. Before Yunas could do more than give a brief grunt of agreement, he carried on, his voice loud and overriding. “And how you about, Mister Barris, was it? You from Kafrene?”

“Visiting,” he shrugged, preparing to turn the conversation back to pleasantries and uninformative chatter about the festival, or whatever unimportant subject Shaner Ile would bite off on. He was halfway through a broad outline backstory when Yunas cut back into the conversation.

“He’s here on a work trip,” she said. “We were just taking a break from work to check out the Festival.”

Shaner Ile’s face didn’t change, but his eyes sharpened. _Shit_. Now he was curious, and interested. Intentionally or not, Yunas had just implied that Cassian was involved in _her_ work, and since he didn’t currently look much like an Imperial officer, Shaner Ile was trying to figure out how and why Cassian fit into Yunas’ professional life. Cassian kept his face blank, ignored the tiny fingers now flipping the back of his collar up and down, and shrugged as much as the weight on his shoulder allowed. It looked like he would have to roll out his planned identity for the Security Station infiltration early. If he introduced himself as someone else now, and then Shaner Ile saw him anywhere near the Security Station, it would be a disaster. “Agent Barris Clarke,” he said. “ISA.”

“ISA?” Shaner Ile’s smile faltered for a moment, and then fixed back into place. “Well! How ‘bout that? Didn’t know you were buddies with an _agent,_ Yunas.” The stress on the word ‘agent’ told Cassian that Shaner Ile was one of those people who assumed every Internal Security Affairs officer was really an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau. In Cassian’s experience, ISA were bean counters, people who sat at desks and audited various Imperial military branches. (The Emperor adored waste and extravagance when it centered around himself, but let one of his mid-level lackeys skim off the top…)

Shaner Ile had obviously never met a real ISB agent. Cassian had. Sometimes he still had nightmares about it.

He shrugged again and turned his attention specifically back to Riggers, ignoring the way her mouth dropped open at his introduction. Agent Clarke was bored with this conversation, not interested in meeting Shaner Ile, and probably getting tired of carrying a stubborn child. Shaner Ile seemed to catch the message, because he turned back to Yunas, who did not have the threat of shadowy power to drive him off.

“Your mother needs you back, Kiri,” he said quietly.

His collar stopped flipping up and down, but the grip on his neck remained solid and unyielding.

“You’re really pushing it, young lady,” Riggers muttered.

“I’m a bit surprised you all came out, Yunas,” the Imperial chattered on, flicking glances over his colleague’s shoulder to Cassian as if he thought he was being subtle. “This crowd is huge, isn’t it?”

Riggers frowned, her attempts to pry her daughter away stalling as she listened. Cassian got the sinking feeling that Shaner Ile was driving towards something specific, and Riggers recognized the path.

“Crowds were like this last year too,” Yunas stepped a little back, towards the rest of her family and Cassian, her body language making it clear that she didn’t want to hang around and small talk with her work acquaintance. “We usually leave after the show.”

The countdown clock ticked to ten minutes, and began to flash red and yellow. The crowd cheered, beginning to pack in tighter up at the front of the northern stage.

“Oh of course,” Shaner Ile used the excuse of someone passing behind him in the crowd to shuffle forward, following Yunas back and ignoring her cues to end the conversation. “I just meant I was surprised you brought your little girl.” The man peered over at Cassian and his passenger, his smile fixed. “I thought you might be worried about exposing her to all these people.”

There was no way the girl could understand the implications of that sentence, if she even could hear it with her head buried against Cassian. But he felt her curl herself a little harder against his chest, responding perhaps to the man’s tone, to the tiny razor blades in his words that she was too young to identify but could still feel. He wanted abruptly to turn his back squarely on the Imperial and walk away, or at least get his own body between the Security Officer and the suddenly fragile bundle of boney little knees and bright green hair.

“Oh goodness, that sounded terrible,” Shaner Ile laughed, holding up his hands in helpless (false) apology. “I meant her immune system, of course. Isn’t she much weaker than normal Human children? Wouldn’t want her to get sick out here.”

“Thoughtful of you,” Yunas replied in a dangerously level tone. “We better go, don’t want to miss the show. Nice seeing you, Clayton.”

“Oh you too, see you back at work tomorrow!” Shaner Ile peered over at Cassian and waved. “Will I see you as well, Agent Clarke?”

Overhead, the countdown clock let out a loud, rolling peal of bells, seven minutes blinking in urgent red and yellow. This time the crowd’s cheer was much louder and more eager, effectively drowning out any possible answer. Cassian shrugged his free shoulder again, and deliberately walked away.

The death grip on his neck suddenly let up as the little girl clapped her hands over her ears. Riggers reached up, and Cassian clumsily handed the child over, his hands feeling wooden and useless as he imagined himself suddenly losing his grip and dropping her to the hard street. Riggers reclaimed her child without any disaster, however, and Cassian stuck his hands back in his pockets, relieved.

The crowd began to pack in tighter, pushing towards the still-dark northern stage. Yunas crouched down and pulled her son up onto her back, the boy looking a little sheepish but secretly delighted to be carried, too. Cassian made a point of walking a little in front of both laden parents, clearing what little path he could manage for them until they were free of the crowd pressing towards the stage.

“I wanna see the Star Spear,” Kiri whined, and Riggers shushed her.

“We will, baby. But you need to stay with Mommy right now, okay? And I mean it, this time.”

Yunas knelt and let her son down, then rubbed a hand over Kiri’s back before walking close to Cassian. Her face was grim again, her shoulders rigid. She was still not convinced, he could see that, but how close she was to agreeing or rejecting him, he couldn’t parse. “What are you asking, exactly?”

“Door codes,” Cassian kept his voice only just loud enough for her under the noise of the crowd. “A layout of the station. An ident badge that gets me around the lower levels of the facility. I know you’re not high enough to get me where I need to go, but you can get me close enough.”

Yunas looked down at her boots, then back up at Cassian. “And if I don’t?”

 _Then when you walk away, I will swipe the little grey box in my jacket against your pocket,_ Cassian thought _, and steal all the codes on your Security Officer ident badge that you’re carrying in there. I will break into the facility without your help, and leave you holding the blame when the disruption is inevitably discovered_.

He didn’t say it, though. There was such a thing as too much honesty. (And fuck, hadn’t he _just_ learned that hard lesson for the thousandth time this morning?)

The countdown clock tolled like a giant bell again, five minutes to go and running out of time. “If you don’t,” Cassian said, and then pulled his hands free and held them out, palm up. “Then nothing.”

She scowled at him, suspicious. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.” He closed his hands up into fists and then spread them wide, like smoke dispersing on the wind. “You’ll never see me again.” He leaned close. “ _No matter how hard you look._ ”

She didn’t really understand, he could see it in her face. She knew it was a threat, but of course she didn’t know that he wasn’t trying to drag her into danger; he was giving her a chance to get out of it. If she helped him, he could make sure she had an alibi while he was in the Security Station, he could shield her and her family from the consequences as much as possible. But only with her help. Only with her consent.

And if he didn’t have that, he had no good choices left. The Alliance needed this information. They needed to find whatever the hells this terrible project _was_ that made Analysis tear out their hair and Draven gain dark bags under his eyes. Cassian needed to know why the Empire suddenly needed kyber crystal so badly that they would invade a whole planet in an even more brutal fashion than usual just to get it. He needed to figure out what they were planning to do with all that power.

He needed to find Galen Erso.

Yunas’ arms hugged her torso hard. “I don’t…” she started, then frowned. Over her shoulder, Riggers moved Kiri to her shoulders, to let the little girl see over the crowd towards the stage. Her son climbed up on a large crate next to a vendor’s food cart. Three minutes, boomed the countdown clock.

Cassian stayed still, telling himself not to hold his breath (and doing it anyway).

“What about - ” Yunas tried again, then abruptly snapped her mouth closed and glared at something over Cassian’s shoulder. He turned to look, and found himself facing a short, nervous looking Human with dark hair and an oversized freighter pilot jumpsuit.

“Uh, excuse me,” the nervous man said, tugging at his somewhat grimy shirt beneath his coat. “I, um, need to talk to you. Business.”

He didn’t seem like a trap, but then, the worst ones never did. Cassian eyed the man’s curly hair, rubbed into a greasy mess and smelling of ship oil. Clearly this person was both pilot and mechanic on whatever rig he operated. His eyes darted around the crowd like he was expecting to be ambushed at any moment, and he shuffled his scuffed boots constantly, never standing still a moment. Every few seconds, he shot a worried look at the nearest dark alley running back between the black buildings of the Plaza’s edge. A conman, then, probably the bait boy for a local gang. Normally the bait boy would claim to be in need of help, begging a likely mark for help before leading them back into the ambush. Asking to talk ‘business’ was a new one. But Cassian wasn’t in the mood to play with local muggers or gangsters or whatever game was being played here. And the timing couldn’t be worse.

“Sorry,” Cassian said coldly. “I’m not interested.”

“Um, are you sure?” The conman reached into his oversized jacket, and Cassian jerked back towards Yunas, his own hand flying to the hidden blaster under his arm. He felt the Security Officer startle and step back, but there was no time for anything else, and Cassian slipped his blaster free from the holster just as the man pulled out something small and golden, holding it up in the palm of his hand.

Small and golden and round, and _not_ a blaster. Cassian paused with his own weapon still concealed inside his jacket but ready to pull free and aim in a heartbeat. The nervous man shifted his weight again, almost dancing as he shot frightened glances around the crowd. Cassian looked at the object again and –

_“It’s a Partisan cypher,” Jyn said, her eyes locked on the small golden disk. She held the device between her scarred hands and twisted the top, first one way, then the other. He could almost see the calculations running through her head as she worked through whatever puzzle the thing presented her. “Saw was always a paranoid bastard,” she muttered as she tried to explain how the disk was a complicated means of communicating between the Partisans. She had rolled her eyes and half-smiled at him, though her attention stayed focused on the device. “But this is really getting fucking ridiculous.”_

_Her shoulder nearly brushed against his, relaxed around him, safe. Smiling._

_Command had ordered him to kill her if he had to, and she was smiling at him, while in her hands, the little golden rings went click, click, click_.

The countdown clock rang with a deafening series of bells pealing, the timer flashing at zero. The crowd screamed in excitement, and the stage suddenly lit up like a fireworks show as music boomed from the tall speakers. A dozen dancers shimmering in robes studded with metals and gemstones bounded onto the stage, flipping, twisting, dancing into view, each holding aloft handfuls of shining skewers and strands of glinting quartz.

Cassian’s insides were frozen over, nothing but dark sand in a cold desert all around him and the shadow of a woman he wanted so badly to know.

“Hey,” La Kai Yunas shouted in his ear. “ _Hey._ What’s going on?”

Cassian reached out and took the Partisan cypher from the man’s hands, his fingers clenching tight around it as he shoved it into his pocket. “Business,” he yelled back. “I’ll be back.” He turned on his heel and stalked into the alleyway that the man had been checking repeatedly. “She” was in there, and if “she” wasn’t Jyn Erso, there would be hell to pay.

“Oh, hey, wait,” the man scrambled to keep up as Cassian wound his way through the vendor. The noise was muted in the back alleys, away from the crowds. The nervous man rushed ahead, and turned left. “Over here.”

Cassian reached back inside his jacket and un-holstered his blaster again. He rounded the corner after his nervous guide and found –

Nothing.

The nervous man stood alone in a dead end alley, and that was all that Cassian bothered to process before he surged forward and slammed his forearm hard into the man’s throat. The move drove them both back, and ended with the stranger pinned against the black, heavily graffiti’d wall with Cassian’s arm crushing his throat and blaster pressing against the stranger’s cheek.

“No, no, not a trap!” The man wheezed. “Not a trap! She just won’t – she said won’t like – I just want - talk! Please!”

Cassian let some of the pressure relax against the stranger’s throat so he could speak. “Who are you?” He demanded, dropping his voice and letting the ice lodged in his chest splinter into his tone. “What do you want, and how do you have this device?”

“Partisan!” The man gasped. “I’m a Partisan. My business partner gave me the gold thing. She said you would know what it was. She said, she said… well, we can help you.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “Help me?”

“Break into an Imperial Security Station,” he clarified. “Find out where they're taking all that kyber. And what they’re doing with it.” He was sweating heavily now, shaking against Cassian’s arm. “Alliance doesn’t like Partisans, I know,” he said weakly. “But we need the same thing right now. Right? And you think I’ll betray you, but I won’t. You gotta, um, gotta take the risk. Gotta take the risk and I can help you. _We_ can help you. So um, maybe we can just work together a bit? Just to…uh,” he shook his head a little. “Just to see?”

Cassian’s stomach flipped. Slowly, he dropped his arm and backed away, leaving the blaster raised but not pressed against the man’s face. “Did your... partner tell you to say that?” he asked softly.

“Um, not specifically?” The man rubbed at his throat. “But she said something kind of like it.”

_“Jyn,” he asked, his heart thumping painfully in his chest as he stared at the dark sands of Jedha’s frozen desert. “Who are you?”_

“Okay,” he said aloud, his voice sounding strange detached to his ears. He lowered the blaster and pointed it at the ground. “Okay. Let’s…see.” He blinked, snapping himself back from the desert, from the cold, and focused on the man tugging nervously at his oversized coat. “Who are you?”

“Tivik,” the man said, smiling weakly at him. “I’m Tivik. From Jedha. And um,” he coughed a little, “I can help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Star Spear festival is a bastardized sci-fi version of [Thaipusam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaipusam), a version of which I saw in Kuala Lumpur and thought was really interesting and beautiful. The abundance of metal was meant as a purely Kafrene twist, and the shining skewers are meant to invoke the Jedi. 
> 
> Depending on who you ask, [batata](https://www.yummly.com/recipes/batata) is either a kind of sweet potato, a fried potato fritter, or a specific combination of spices and potato. I personally like the street food version, batata vada like those sold in Chennai. 
> 
> Did I just take whole paragraphs from 'you give me something' and drop them into this chapter? Yes. Yes I did.


	8. Day 8: Communications, Section II

**[Pyrite Plaza, Osmium Sector, Silver Ring, Resh District]**

The graffiti-coated wall of the narrow alley was cold against Cassian’s back, but he ignored the chill and pressed himself tight to the grimy stone. To his right, a large dumpster filled the claustrophobic space with the reek of old cheap food, the leftovers and expired merchandise from the Biscuit Baron that loomed up behind his newest contact’s greasy head. The Imperial-controlled fast-food restaurant was clearly doing booming business from the Star Spear festival, judging by the overflow of garbage pushing the dumpster lid up. The walls seemed to reverberate against Cassian’s shoulder blades, shaking and jittering in time with the music that boomed in from the packed Plaza only a few meters away. Cassian tried his best to tune it out, and focused exclusively on the nervous person before him.

“Tivik,” he repeated slowly, watching the Human’s face closely for any sign of falsehood or hostility. “From Jedha.”

“Yes. Jedha.” Tivik shuffled his worn boots nervously, shot a painfully obvious glance down the alley towards the dancing, cheering crowds they could only just see at the end of the alley. “I work for Saw Ger-“

“Never heard of him,” Cassian cut him off sharply, the spike of fear in his chest tipped with incredulity. Did the fool have no sense of self-preservation at all? Who in the galaxy would dare deliberately connect themselves to one of the most wanted rebels in the Empire while standing in a city like _Kafrene?_

Tivik didn’t seem to understand Cassian’s warning, though, his dark eyes blinking rapidly as he stared across the small space between them. He reached up and swiped at his damp forehead with a frayed sleeve. “Um, sorry? You don’t know who S-“

“No,” Cassian snapped, his patience fraying a little around the edges as he forced his shoulders to drop, willed his heart rate to slow. He swept another scan around the alley, but no Stormtroopers appeared to grab them both and drag them to interrogation. Although if Tivik kept prattling like this, they surely would, and soon. “I have never,” he said slowly, carefully, making sure to look Tivik directly in the eye, “heard of him.” Cassian leaned in slightly, narrowing his eyes. “And _neither have you_.”

“LADIES AND GENTLEBEINGS!” boomed a voice from out in the Plaza, echoing in a watery, indistinct way through the sudden awkward silence in the alley. “WELCOME TO THE SIXTY-EIGHTH STAR SPEAR FESTIVAL IN BEAUTIFUL PYRITE PLAAAAZAAAAAAA!!”

“…Right,” the nervous mechanic finally seemed to catch on, albeit a little slowly. “Right. Never. Um. So, I run messages and stuff, mostly,” he watched for a moment, but all Cassian did was settle back against the wall, his arms crossed and his face impassive. Tivik seemed to find his balance again, and continued with a little more confidence. “Supplies, too. I am an independent shipping contractor. Small time, so I don’t get pulled up for inspection or anything a lot.”

 _Smuggler,_ Cassian labelled him mentally, and his poorly-cleaned but well-made clothes said that Tivik was not a very good one, but not entirely a bad one either. That was probably why Gerrera used him. Someone like Tivik would probably fall to pieces if he had to ship in and out of the prosperous but highly scrutinized trade ports like Coruscant or Alderaan, but in a place like Kafrene, where there was a lot of shipping trade but the cargo was almost always low-value freight…yes, Cassian decided, scanning Tivik’s wide eyes and humble, rounded shoulders. In places like the sloppily-regulated shipping ports of Kafrene, someone like Tivik could slip in and out a thousand times without the slightest notice.

Out in the Plaza, the crowds roared in approval as a series of names were announced – the actors in the big show, Cassian gathered, preparing to act out “THE ANCIENT TALE OF LIGHT, LOVE, DEATH, AND POWER! LET’S HEAR THOSE VOICES, FRIENDS, BECAUSE IT’S TIME FOR THE TALE OF… _THE MASTER OF THE STAR SPEAR!”_

Cassian subtly adjusted his crossed arms, ensuring that one hand was still lightly resting against his hidden blaster as he looked the stranger in the alley over. He took a moment to pick out the exact tone he wanted to use; apathetic but not cold. He wasn’t open to being this person’s friend, but he was willing to listen for the moment. “So,” he began just as Tivik looked ready to start speaking, cutting the man off carelessly. “What do you want?”

“Yeah. Okay. Right.” Tivik scratched at his shoulder and peered down the alley towards the plaza again, although whether he was distracted by the announcer or trying to check for troopers was difficult to tell. Cassian allowed him a moment to look, waited for the mechanic to refocus and pay attention. “We need a copy.”

Cassian kept his tone neutral, his face distant, and his hand on his blaster. “A copy.”

To his credit, Tivik didn’t cringe away, although he kept shifting his weight and looking back down the alley towards the crowded plaza, where the music was pulsing and throbbing in time to some sort of dance number on the stage. “Of the data you get,” he said at last, lifting his hands and gesturing with both of them towards Cassian, as if handing something invisible to him. “If we help you get it, then we want a copy.” The music surged in a brief but thunderous crescendo, and the mechanic startled, his hands and his confidence dropping instantly.

“How?” Cassian asked, pulling the Human's attention back.

“What? Oh, okay. Yeah. So, the station. J- uh, my partner says you can get into the station’s front door. You got a security officer or something that will let you through, right?” Tivik absently waved both hands at him once more, absorbed in his own explanation – which was good, because Cassian didn’t quite stop himself from flinching, either at the idea that Jyn had simply assumed Cassian had already hooked Yunas or at the thought that she had given this stranger her true name.

Force save him…had she?

He closed his eyes briefly and let the wave of mild nausea wash through him unexamined. It was not relevant to the situation at hand. He didn’t need to know if it was fear or jealousy or…

Tivik was still talking. Cassian refocused.

“So while you go in through the front, we go in through the roof. I got a way in, so we’ll be in the top while you move through the lower levels. The security systems are all controlled from the top floor, that’s where all the servers and stuff are.”

“Not all,” Cassian corrected, more to himself than the stranger, and immediately regretted it. Dangerous to show his knowledge. Dangerous to reveal any familiarity with Imperial security station layouts to someone who might well be a spy for them.

But Tivik didn’t so much as blink in surprise. “No, no, right, the Secure Data consoles will be in the sub-level, underground. Always are, right? No transmissions can get through from down there." His hands flapped in semi-excitement now, pleased to be speaking on the same level now. "So, that’s why we need you. We’d never get from the top to the bottom, but we can make sure you have a clear path down there. And a clear path out, which I figure is more important, right?” He was clearly trying to project confidence, but it was undermined by the way his eyes darted again to the Plaza, where the crowd roared in response to something on stage. It also didn’t help that a faint sheen of sweat still gleamed on his forehead, which he wiped at thoughtlessly from time to time.

 Jumpy little man, this Tivik, and not remotely trained in spy work. Cassian would have to tread as carefully around Tivik’s inexperience as he would around a ticking bomb. How had Jyn even found this person?

 _Had_ she found this person?

“Your associate,” he said at last, because the word _partner_ froze and splintered like ice in his mouth before he could force it out. “Where is she?”

“Oh, she’s close,” Tivik dragged his attention from the alley opening and the bright colors whirling on the distant stage. “We just decided that it might be…” he made a vague gesture. “Better? Better. If we didn’t crowd you both at once.” He smiled shakily, a weak attempt to connect with Cassian, to appear friendly and harmless. Well, he probably was genuinely friendly and harmless, but Cassian had neither the time nor the inclination to indulge social niceties. His back still prickled with the inherent wrongness of this whole day, a day of frightened civilians glaring at him, of ‘troopers marching through crowds. Of the empty space at his side, and the creeping fear that it would remain empty from now on. Jyn had sent this Partisan to Cassian rather than simply bring them together herself. She had found a way to help him while distancing herself from him as much as possible. This might even, in Jyn’s mind, be a sort of resignation, a message that she was still willing to be a part of his work, but not his life. 

In the back of his mind, he wondered if it wasn’t better that way. He didn’t know where this war would lead him, not yet, but it wouldn’t be anywhere good. It couldn’t possibly. And if Jyn genuinely believed that he was suicidal, if she thought he was the type of person to just give up and swallow his poison and let the Empire win… Maybe it was better if Jyn left now. Maybe she had come to the same conclusion.

 _“_ THE GREAT ONES GRIEVED AT THE VIOLENCE OF THE WARS, _”_ the sonorous voice bellowed from the Plaza as green and red lights flashed in the corner of Cassian’s vision. “AND RESOLVED TO CREATE A MIGHTY WEAPON THAT WOULD BRING EVERLASTING PEACE TO THEIR BELOVED PEOPLE. _”_

“She’s the one who found you,” Tivik’s voice interrupted his ugly, churning thoughts. “She said you were going by Saya. Good code name, by the way.” He grinned, waving his hands in a truncated gesture of approval.

Cassian took a deep breath and checked that his expression was neutral, his hands relaxed and not balled into tight fists. “Oh?”

“Well, um, means ‘shadow,’ right? In Old Jedhan? Unless you use it a certain way, then it means 'shelter,' which I figured was a good sign. Right?” He laughed nervously again, though it died in the face of Cassian’s complete lack of response. “Anyway. I’m not…really sure _how_ she found you,” Tivik ducked his head and shrugged, then met Cassian’s eyes again a touch sheepishly. “But when she popped up at my dead drop to coordinate with me, she said you were getting into a security station in the Gold Ring.” Abruptly (and in Cassian’s opinion, entirely too late) Tivik’s voice dropped low and careful. “And we need the data in there. Gerr- I mean, my leader knows that something big is happening, something to do with home, but we don’t know what.”

His voice cracked slightly on the word _home_ , and Cassian thought of white armor marching down the narrow streets of Jedha, crushing colorful paper lanterns into dust and stripping the shimmering crystals from every surface with ruthless efficiency. He refrained from pointing out that the ‘something big’ probably had nothing to do with Jedha, and everything to do with the kyber they were so greedily amassing. Tivik would probably react poorly to any suggestion that his suffering, his home's destruction, was meaningless in the eyes of the war itself. He knew Tivik’s measure now; he’d seen people just like him all over the galaxy, more and more with every passing year. Small people living their small lives, perhaps not entirely happy with the regime that loomed ever over their heads, but content to let it loom at a distance because what could they do? What could a man like Tivik, with his frayed jacket and his uncertain fidget, ever hope to do against the juggernaut of the Empire?

But now the Imperial boot was crushing his homeworld, so now the war was real for him. It would never occur to him to think of his home as just another piece of collateral damage. Something precious to him was at risk now, so Tivik would gather what bits of courage he had and look for a leader who would save it. Cassian wondered idly how many of Gerrera’s people were just like Tivik, locals seeking any kind of salvation they could find. He knew better than to wonder how many of the Alliance’s people were the same. In the end, it probably didn't matter. So long as they fought. So long as they stopped whatever new terror the Empire was preparing somewhere out there in the blackness of space.

 _“_ AND FROM THAT GLORIOUS UNION WAS MADE _THE STAR SPEAR_ , WHICH SHONE THROUGH THE CHAOS OF WAR AS A BEACON OF RIGHTEOUSNESS,” the loudspeakers boomed out in the plaza, the voice escalating as music swelled behind it and lights flashed bright in the center of the stage.

“She popped up at your dead drop,” Cassian said at last, setting aside his personal opinions and refocusing on what mattered.

Tivik coughed, shuffled his feet like a guilty schoolboy who knew he’d been caught saying too much. “Oh, uh, well…”

Cassian narrowed his eyes and tilted his chin down. “How long have you worked with this associate of yours?”

More shuffling, then the mechanic apparently decided to brazen it out. He shrugged and showed Cassin a thoroughly unconvincing expression of indifference. “Awhile.”

Cassian counted to five in his head, refusing to blink as he stared at Tivik steadily. It was a highly effective trick he had picked up from Jyn.

 _It’s just a little bit too long for most Humans_ , _she smirked at him, sipping her tea and leaning casually against his arm, warm and solid and relaxed. They get nervous, start talking to ward you off. Most of the time they don’t even know why. Cassian had hummed thoughtfully, slipping his arm from under her shoulder and wrapping it around her waist instead, quietly delighted when she simply shifted to lean more comfortably against his chest without a word. He only saw her this unguarded when they were alone, and he tried not to feel too pleased with himself, that he could make her feel so safe_.

Sure enough, by the time Cassian reached the count of five and let himself blink, Tivik's hands were already fluttering in random nervous gestures. “Okay look, she’s not from my cell,” he burst out. “We only just met today. She’s from, well, not Jedha. She’ll tell you herself if she wants to, okay?” He threw up his hands in a warding gesture at Cassian, as if he expected to be attacked. “But she’s _definitely_ a Partisan. Or she could never have followed my signs!”

“Your signs?” Cassian stayed leaning against the wall, but he shifted his weight slightly too, as if he were seconds from pushing off the wall and stalking away. He intended no such thing, but Tivik was clearly the sort of person who prattled when he was nervous or worried, and the more he thought Cassian would walk away without helping, the more he would say to keep the temporary alliance in play.

“Yeah, this is Kafrene, it’s all signs and symbols here.” Tivik pointed up at the wall behind his own head helpfully, indicating the bright spray of graffiti that colored the black plas-steel walls. Cassian scanned the surface, noting the poems written in pink and green, the elaborate artistic renderings of people’s names, the equally elaborate but somewhat less artistic depictions of various species’ anatomy and helpful descriptions of what to do with it. Cassian followed the line of Tivik’s pointing finger until he picked out a particularly intricate red arrow, the interior filled with what at first glance seemed like random small symbols curling in on each other. He had the faint impression that he had seen this before, but couldn’t quite place it.

“No one notices a few extra marks on Kafrene’s walls,” Tivik was saying, sounding almost like an anxious salesman attempting to talk up his wares to a customer he desperately needed. “So we can pass names and news and whatever information we need, right?”

_The brass rings clicked in her hands and Jyn slid them into complex patterns, the intensity of her expression clear to him even in the darkness of the Jedhan desert. It’s a Partisan cypher, she told him with a hint of pride in her tone as she worked, but even after only a few days with her, Cassian already knows better than to point out that pride to her. He had seen her face through his scope when the Partisans chained her wrists. Even in his anger and fear, he had seen that betrayal in her eyes._

Cassian looks up at the complex red symbols on the wall, hearing _Saw was always a paranoid bastard but this is getting ridiculous_ echoing in his memory before dragged himself back from the desert at Jyn’s side and into the present. Which was decidedly absent of Jyn.

Then again…

“I don’t work with people I haven’t met,” Cassian said firmly. That was banthashit, of course, Cassian worked with strangers all the time, usually because he had no choice. He had to work with people who could easily be Imperial moles or slavers or Darth Vader himself for all Cassian knew ahead of time, or sometimes, afterwards. Cassian’s whole life for the past twenty years was a tangled skein of lies and half-truths and hidden identities, further colored and confused by blood and pain and signals going silent. But Tivik didn’t know that.

The mechanic swiped at his forehead again and tugged on his over-large jacket, glancing down the alley both ways this time. “That’s not…that’s not the deal,” he said at last.

“Then we have no deal,” Cassian pushed himself off the wall and turned partially towards the plaza, taking care to keep his blaster between his body and Tivik. Just in case. He walked briskly down the alley, counting down in his head. Three, two, one –

“Wait!”

He stopped, turned back to face Tivik, none of his satisfaction showing in his face.

“Look, I have to ask her, okay?” The mechanic waved his hands in a surprisingly graceful gesture. Cassian recognized it as something similar to a gesture the older woman in Jedha had made once, when Cassian’s team of recruits had hidden in her home that first night of the planetary invasion. “I can’t force her to meet you, I mean, not this person, not if she doesn’t want to do it. So I have to ask her, and that might take a little time, and we don’t have a lot of time, right? Not that there is a good time, ever, but I got to leave soon, got to get back to my shipping, so we got to move, fast.” He made another of those flowing gestures, although now that Cassian was paying attention he could see the difference between Tivik’s movements and the old mother on Jedha. Sloppier, less practiced, but just as heartfelt, judging by the tension in Tivik’s jaw and the worry in his wide eyes. “I’ll have to ask her.” His hands fluttered again as he glanced over his shoulder, more body language that Cassian could only half-read. It meant…was it regret? No, an invitation, but with the implication that what was offered would not be sufficient. Tivik didn’t really think his associate would speak to Cassian.

Cassian didn’t really know if she would speak to him, either.

If she wouldn’t, then Captain Andor of the Alliance needed to know that, immediately. On the other hand, Cassian wasn’t sure he was prepared to deal with it if she didn’t. He tried for a moment to imagine what he would do if Jyn had decided that…this, this life they had only just begun to build between them, was over and done. If she refused to come back, maybe found her own way back to the Alliance without him, or worse, chose to stay on the Malta only as a fellow operative, only as Sergeant Erso.

His guts twisted inside him, and his vision blurred for a moment. The black metal walls of the alley were cold under his palm as he reached out to steady himself. “AND IN THE LIGHT OF THE STAR SPEAR, THE WARMONGERS AND THE TYRANTS CRIED OUT AND COVERED THEIR FACES,” the announcer cried, the wall shaking under Cassian’s hand slightly in time to the words. “THE WARRING PLANETS FELL SILENT, AND PEACE AT LAST SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE STARS! _”_

“So, are you going to wait here, then?” Tivik’s higher-pitched voice cut through the clamor of the festival, the roaring of Cassian’s thoughts. “I mean, it might take ages for me to even find her, but if you wait here – “

No choice. He needed to know.

“I doubt that,” Cassian straightened, dropped his hand from the wall, and raised his voice deliberately. “But yes, this is a good place to meet. If you – “ he licked his lips, braced himself. He spoke carefully, but his voice, at least, betrayed nothing but calm when he called out into the alley, “If you are willing.”

Tivik frowned, confused. “Um. Right. Then I suppose I’ll just – “

Something metal nearby creaked, just barely audible over the crowd’s roar. Tivik turned and looked behind him, down the alley towards the nearby Biscuit Baron dumpster. But Cassian tilted his head and looked up, so he saw the moment Jyn plummeted down from four levels up. Her hand flew out and caught the railing of the catwalk with a ringing _smack_ , turning her fall into a half-arc that launched her across the alley to the plas-steel wall over Cassian’s head. Tivik heard the crunch of her boots against the metal and squawked in surprise as he jerked around and finally looked in the right direction, just in time to see her use the momentum of the jump to throw herself back across the alley at an angle. She caught the jutting plas-steel edge of the ladder hanging down from the catwalk and used it to swing herself around again, angling even lower as she dropped again. The flashing lights of the plaza painted her in blue and green and gold as she landed with perfect precision in a controlled crouch on the grimy metallic floor of the alley, her head bent, her scarf flaring briefly behind her in a stream of starry blue.

_The trick to surviving a long fall, called Sergeant Liana Hallik (Jyn, she whispered in his ear, my name is Jyn) as she threw herself over the railing of the warehouse, is to turn a big one into several little falls that you can control. The gaggle of Alliance recruits on the floor of the warehouse stared in astonishment and respect as she leapt from precarious point to precarious point along the stacked crates, until her boots crunched on the debris-strewn floor before them all. Cassian leaned over the railing and swallowed hard, glad that the recruits were all staring so intently at their impressive new sergeant, glad for the shadows that wreathed his face as he struggled to set aside the lingering sensation of her body pinning him down._

“Oh shit,” Tivik gasped over Jyn’s shoulder, and then he cleared his throat and smiled thinly at Cassian. “Right. Okay. Guess she’s…here. Mister Saya, meet Janan.”

She stood up, and raised her chin until her eyes met his.

He stood across from her in the sunlit alley, worn gold-cast stone casting a yellowish sheen over her face, making her green eyes glint as she stared at him warily. The Klatooinians lay strewn in the dirt around her feet like sacrifices made to some ancient goddess of battle, but her focus stayed locked on him, intent, watchful, strangely compelling. Cassian could still feel the pulse of adrenaline throbbing through his veins, his breath coming too quick and light, and a warmth that had nothing to do with the bright Jedhan sun spreading through his limbs. He hadn’t felt this good in months. He hadn’t felt this alive in…

_Come on then, he told her, stretching out his hand, giddy with the knowledge that she might swipe her blade across his presumptuous features, but she might reach out and take his hand instead._

_Her palm against his felt like a brand, like a greater promise than he had any right to expect. Where are we going?_

“What do you want?” Cassian asked her now, watching the shadows flicker and chase themselves across her face as the lights from the plaza glowed and shifted.

Jyn stared across at him, her eyes dark in the black-walled alley, her shoulders tense and her hands clenched.

“To help you,” Tivik said helpfully after a long beat of silence.

Jyn nodded.

Cassian took a long, slow breath. “We go tomorrow, then. An hour after La Kai starts her shift. But I need something from you, first.” He fought to keep his voice level, to stop himself from dropping his tone from professional to personal.

Jyn tilted her head, waiting.

“The security guard I’m using as my in,” Cassian pushed aside the tiny flush of guilt as he said it, because Yunas was his way in, whether she agreed to help him or not, and he had no time to dwell on it. “I want your organization to help me move her and her family out of Kafrene. Credits, new identities, and an evac.”

“Hey, that’s a lot,” Tivik sputtered, but Cassian cut in before he could protest further.

“I will handle some of the credits and the idents. But you need to help me get them passage offworld.”

Jyn nodded.

“Janan,” Tivik said, making another sloppy gesture, this one more half-hearted than the rest, clearly already resigned.

“Done,” Jyn said quietly, not looking at her…associate. Her eyes stayed locked on Cassian’s, and he would have given a great deal in that moment to be able to read them.

“AND SO THE STAR SPEAR AWAITS,” the announcer thundered behind him, “FOR THE DAY IT IS CALLED FORTH AGAIN, TO BRING PEACE TO THE GALAXY!”

Tivik sighed. “Yeah. Right. Okay. So. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Cassian nodded.

“Okay.” Tivik hesitated, looking back and forth between Jyn and Cassian hesitantly.

“Go,” Jyn told him curtly.

“Better we don’t all leave together,” Cassian added, deliberately letting his face relax enough to appear encouraging. Tivik responded exactly as Cassian expected, his shoulders relaxing as he swiped one last time at his sweating face.

“Right, right, of course. I’ll go, then. See you…well, tomorrow.”

He shuffled down the alley and squeezed into the crowds, vanishing immediately among the cheering masses. The lights on the stage flared green as a figure dressed all in white held aloft a glittering spear, the music crashed in a final crescendo, and then the stage went dark and the music faded, leaving only the roaring approval of the audience.

In the alley, it all felt very far away.

Jyn moved, an uncertain half-step towards him that she halted almost as soon as she started.

Cassian’s heart thudded in his chest, his insides splintering with cold, but he kept his mouth shut, his arms crossed. He didn’t know what to do, so he did the only thing that felt remotely safe. He waited.

Jyn took another tiny step towards him. “Hey, stranger,” she said softly.

His heart twisted. “Is that,” he grated, stopped. Cleared his throat and tried again. “Is that what you’ve been calling me?”

Jyn’s hand slipped up to her throat, her fingers wrapping around the necklace he knew was tucked under her scarf. “No.”

 _I thought you trusted me_ , he wanted to say. _And I didn’t realize until now how badly I wanted that to be true._ The words pressed at his mouth, the edges of them cutting into his tongue, freezing his throat. He held them back.

He always held them back.

“Thought it would be better,” she said in a stilted voice, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder in the direction Tivik had vanished. “If he didn’t know we were…connected.”

Cassian’s voice was barely any smoother than hers. “Good call.”

The silence stretched out again, broken only by the muted but still raucous noise of the plaza. Over Jyn’s shoulder, the blood-red arrow filled with Partisan signs seemed to glower at him. The stench from the fast food dumpster was cloying now, and the heat of the packed bodies nearby made his body feel slick and grimy. A surge of sudden bitter hatred flooded through Cassian – he _hated_ this, this alley, this city, this whole…life.

“Did she agree?” Jyn asked him, jerking her chin towards the plaza. “The guard.”

Cassian shoved the anger down with the ease of long practice. “Not yet. Got interrupted.”

Jyn grimaced. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

She scowled down at her boots, her fingers still clenched around the unseen crystal at her neck. Her grip tugged the scarf slightly askew, and in the poor light he could just see the glint of embroidered stars near the vulnerable skin of her throat.

“He might turn on you,” Cassian said abruptly, ripping his eyes away from the sight. It wasn’t at all what he wanted to say, but…how could he say anything else? He had asked her for space, and she put so much between them that he couldn’t begin to find the path back across it. “I don’t like sending you alone through the roof with him.”

She looked up at him again, a stray beam of light flashing across her eyes before slipping away. “I don’t like you going alone through the basement.” He watched her hand tighten on the crystal, and then she dropped it and strode forward, her jaw set stubbornly. Cassian’s breath caught, his heart stuttered, and he found himself rocking forward on his toes. “Why didn’t you look?” she asked, demanded. “Did you really think I wouldn’t –“ her voice choked off, her eyes widening briefly before she squeezed them tight and shook her head. She was close enough now that when she opened them again, Cassian could see the faint lines of tension and pain creasing the corners of her lips, the shadows in her eyes that had nothing to do with Kafrene’s discordant light.

Cassian curled his fingers into the rough fabric of his trousers to keep them at his sides, the urge to reach up and press his thumbs against those pained lines so powerful his skin ached with it. He didn’t need to hear the end of the question to know what she was asking, because the same words had sliced through his own heart when Jyn had raged at him yesterday. _Did you really think I would leave you behind without a fight?_

He almost said it, too, almost opened his damned mouth and flung the words out into the narrow space between them. Almost grabbed her shoulders and yanked her close, because how could she think that? How could she be so sure that he had meant to leave her?

But once again, she was too quick for him, and she shifted her weight back on her heels and glared up at him. “After tomorrow,” her voice brittle around the edges but steady, deceptively calm. “After tomorrow, we’re out of here.”

“Yes,” Cassian managed to get his own voice under control enough to mirror her tone. “There will be no good reason to stay, even if the data isn’t exactly what we need.”

“It will be,” she shook her head. “It might…”

 _Might lead us to your traitorous, absent father_ , he read the thought on her face, but did not force her to acknowledge.

“It might blow up in our face,” he said instead, because it was true. “We will both be at risk,” he added with emphasis, not missing how her eyes flicked to his collar.

Jyn nodded.

Then she pivoted on her heel towards the alley opening, her truncheon materializing in her hand and her face pale and set in hard lines. Cassian had his blaster in his hand before his mind had finished processing the change in her body language, leveling the barrel directly at –

“You understand,” La Kai Yunas said from the end of the alley, her face set in tight lines. She didn’t even glance at the blaster, and Cassian slid it away inside his coat just as quickly as he had drawn it. Jyn stayed in her battle-stance, watching the Imperial security guard warily. “The risk,” Yunas deliberately looked from Cassian to Jyn, and back to Cassian again. “You understand.”

His heart began to pound again, adrenaline spiking through him as he processed her words. Yunas glanced aside at Jyn again, and Cassian wanted to step between them, hide Jyn from the stranger’s eyes. She would never allow it, and if Yunas was a threat he would impede her ability to react.

He wanted to do it anyway.

“I was young, when I joined the Security Force,” Yunas stepped closer, her voice lowering until they could only barely hear it over the crowd behind her. “It was just…a job. Good pay. Easy work. And I told myself…I told myself that if I didn’t like it, I could just leave.”

 _No_ , Cassian thought, watching the bitter twist of Yunas’ mouth as she said the words, _you knew even then that you couldn’t. Not without consequences. You just didn’t think it would ever matter to you._

As if she heard his thoughts, Yunas shrugged her shoulders in clear embarrassment. “When it was just me, it was just – it was fine. But then…”

“You met someone,” Jyn said flatly, her truncheon still raised.

Yunas bit her lip, nodded. “She had the most beautiful laugh. And then we had two incredible babies. It was good. It was amazing. And I – I was – “

Cassian held back the sigh, kept his tone neutral. “Trapped.”

“No one just leaves the Security Force.” The bitter smile reappeared on Yunas’ face. “And if you go without their blessing, they can make it haunt you. I’ve got kids to feed, a halfbreed spouse to protect,” she flinched as she spat the slur, but Cassian could hear the anger mixing in with fear, could see that she was only echoing the warnings she had probably heard a hundred times in a hundred ways.

“You can,” Jyn told her. “Leave.”

Yunas squared her shoulders. “You’re asking me to risk something I hold more precious than my life,” she told Cassian. Her eyes darted to Jyn again, and then back to his. “But if you’re willing to do the same, then…then it must be worth it. It must be important.”

At his side, Jyn was completely silent. Cassian didn’t dare look at her.

“Yes,” he promised Yunas. “It is.”

The woman nodded gravely. “Then I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Star Spear myth is not canon, but it is relevant to canon. Or at least I tried to make it that way. 
> 
> Tivik's actual occupation and connection with Saw Gerrera is not really explained anywhere in canon, so I'm going with "private shipping contractor who joined the Partisans after the occupation of Jedha." 
> 
> The 'old woman' Cassian thinks of is Bodhi's mom from the last story. Tivik makes the same sort of gestures (so did bodhi, but Jyn didn't pay that much attention to them at the time). Some cultures just talk with their hands more than others. 
> 
> This felt a bit rough, probably because I let way too much time pass between chapters. Hopefully I will smooth out over the last few chapters (we're getting there!), and later when I'm back in the writing groove, I can come back and clean this up a bit. Thank you again for your patience!


	9. Error: File Not Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _You have today._  
>  _For as long as you can hold on_  
>  _You'll have today._  
>  -atticus

**~~Day 9: Mission Preparation~~ [Error: this record has been deleted] ~~~~**

 

**[onboard the Malta, Lumina Port, The Steel Ring, Resh District]**

 

Someone was watching him.

The awareness of it filtered in through the lines of code on his datapad, the code that altogether made up the verification chip on his fake scandocs. Qusongite Security Station wasn’t the most heavily secured Imperial facility that Cassian had ever infiltrated, but it did have high-grade scanners and delayed access to the Imperial Security Bureau’s databases. The delay between a data request from Kafrene and a response from the ISB headquarters was about a week. That meant that by the time the Security Station got a formal verification from the ISB that Agent Barris Clarke wasn’t actually a member of Internal Security Affairs, he would be long gone.

Unless there was something wrong with his verification chip, in which case, the Kafrene-based Imperials would simply imprison, interrogate, and then kill him and anyone remotely attached to him.

So Cassian took a deep breath and pushed aside the sensation of her eyes on him, summoned every pain-resistant and attention-focusing technique he had ever learned as a spy in a cold war, and continued reading all the way to the end of the code. It was a baseline code he had written months back, dated appropriately to match current Imperial operating procedures (only a fool risked using old codes when dealing with the administratively-precise Empire). Barris Clarke’s data cloaked him in an appropriate level of mystique, not important enough to draw the attention of the Kafrene division’s ruling Admiral, but powerful enough that the lower-level officials and security forces wouldn’t mess with him. No one wanted to look too hard at an ISA agent, lest the agent turned around and started looking back.

Jyn was still there when he closed the document at last, setting the blank datapad against his knee and staring at the empty screen. The chill of the room hit him abruptly, making the exposed skin on his forearms and the back of his neck pebble. “Gets cold in the Steel Ring,” Jyn said from where she leaned on the doorframe.

Cassian glanced at the panel set into the wall by her shoulder; to conserve fuel, they hadn’t bothered to power on the environmental comfort controls in the _Malta’s_ three other small cabins besides the one they had claimed. Cassian hadn’t even really thought about it when he walked into this cabin to work on his ident chip; his only intention had been to sit somewhere quiet and out of the way. Out of her way.

“Got another blanket in the gear,” Jyn shifted her weight against the wall slightly, looking around the small, dimly lit cabin. “But you’ll need the heat on tonight.” Another tiny shift, then her jaw tightened. She was fidgeting, but trying not to show it. Her shoulders were down and her arms crossed carelessly, but Cassian could see the fine lines of tension strung through her, the wary light in her eye as she watched him. “If you sleep here,” she finished awkwardly after an uncertain beat.

“I probably won’t sleep,” Cassian told her, setting the datapad on the bare bunk and pushing himself slowly to his feet. If she hadn’t been blocking half of the narrow doorway, if he could have moved past her without risking touching her, he would have gone to the cockpit and found some way to occupy his restless mind. But she was blocking him in, and he saw her register is as soon as he stood. The tension in her shoulders was much more obvious now, and her eyes narrowed – and then closed. She shoved herself upright and moved back into the small common area that doubled as a galley and pathway down into the cargo holds.

The chrono on the bulkhead over her shoulder said it was a few minutes past midnight, even though the sallow light of Kafrene still filtered in through the nearby cockpit’s viewport. A fractured beam caught on Jyn’s cheek as she lifted her head to look at him, a jagged blade of light cutting across her face and sending a brief flash through her eye until she stepped a little further back.

The look on her face now was wary and fragile, like she was poised to either attack him or run from him, and she wasn’t sure which she should do, which option would keep her alive. The first time he had seen that look, he had been exhausted from months spent in the guts of Coruscant, and dizzied by the flood of light and activity on Jedha.

They had been strangers then, but he had asked her to be a friend for just one day, a day of no names, no tricks, no promises. He would probably never get over the shock and thrill that ran through him when she cautiously agreed.

Now it felt like they were strangers again, somehow.

Cassian hesitated, and then he held out his hand. He hunted through his memories for whatever he had said to her in that alley - but the way she flinched at his movement ripped through his concentration. His throat went dry, his skin colder than the chill in the empty cabins could account for, and a hollow place in his chest that he had almost forgotten in the last few weeks carved itself anew.

He understood, though. That was the worst part. He had meant _the mission_ , when he said that they were done, but he had said it wrong and she had taken it to mean _everything_. Which had hurt her, of course it had, how many people had been _done_ with Jyn Erso in her life? He didn’t know her whole story, there hadn’t been the time to learn it. But in the dark she had wrapped her arms around him and whispered some of it into his skin, and he had heard the tone of her voice and felt the clench of her fingers against him when she spoke of her absent fathers, her dead mother, her failed attempts at integrating into an Alliance unit of any kind. How many times had she been set aside because she wasn’t old enough or strong enough or just _enough_ in general? And then he had, essentially, told her the same thing. He hadn’t meant it like that, but he’d _said_ it, and he’d been angry when he did. Jyn’s reaction now was to protect herself, and she had every right to do so. He would, in her place.

Cassian dropped his hand and turned towards the cockpit. He would – he would find something to work on, something that would hold his attention – even with the burst of painful static in his head, even with the hollow ache in his chest. The backup comm unit in the old Nestt – that had been patchy on the trip to Kafrene. He could take it apart, figure out what was broken. Maybe actually fix it. He could fix a comm, that was easy, that was – he was –

Jyn wrapped her fingers lightly around his wrist.

Cassian froze, then looked back over his shoulder.

Wariness still laced her expression, but there was an exhaustion there, too. She met his eyes and sighed, her shoulders sagging. It was the closest thing to defeat he had ever seen on her, and a sudden blaze of fierce hatred for it burned through him. For a brief moment, he hated the tired slump of her spine, the faint lines around her eyes, the resigned twist of her mouth. He hated the galaxy that had attempted to crush her again and again until she bowed her head under the weight. He hated that he felt it on his own head, like a physical weight pressing relentlessly down and down and down, no matter how hard he pushed back against it. The hatred burned through him like a wildfire, starting from the faint pressure of her fingers around his wrist like a cuff, like a trap, scorching up through him and flaring into his brain, filling the hollow spot in his chest with a seething mass of bitterness and rage. What right had the galaxy to crush her? What right did _she_ have to remind him that it was crushing him too?

He almost wrenched his wrist from her grip, but then, just as suddenly as the fury burst through him like a wildfire gone rampant, it burned out and left him cold all over again. Cold and empty and just…

Jyn’s eyes flicked down his body, and when she looked up at him again, he saw the clarity in her face. She knew, of course. She knew exactly what he had just been thinking, and she knew what he was thinking now. And she didn’t drop his hand.

“I am,” he said quietly, “so damn tired.”

She gave him a faint half-smile which faded immediately, and tugged on his arm.

He followed her back to their cabin without protest, and kicked his boots off with the slow stiff movements of an old man as Jyn shoved her own boots and weapon harness into a pile by the side of the bunk. She didn’t look back at him as she climbed under the blanket, but she adjusted perfectly to his weight as he climbed in after her, rolling to tuck herself against his side with the ease of practice.

She was cold against his side for a few minutes – or more likely, the chill of the empty cabin was still settled in his skin, and it took a few minutes for her warmth to break through – and then the faint yellow light of Kafrene began to turn soft and gold in his vision. His muscles slowly unlocked, his cold skin warmed, and the hollowness in his chest eased. Jyn breathed slow and steady against his shoulder, one arm looped under his neck, the other tight around his chest.

She had held him almost exactly like this on Jedha, too, on the hard floor of the machine shop. He had been so shocked when she pulled him down that he had made no attempt to resist at all, and spent half that night with his brain blazing through the many possible explanations for why she had bothered. Why she cared, or seemed to care, or wanted him to think she cared…

Cassian was a valuable person. He knew that like he knew his own name. He was a skilled operative, an experienced soldier, and a loyal supporter of the rebellion against the Empire. His value was not just an assumption he made, either – he had literally seen it written in his files in Alliance Command. He was classified as a High Value Asset, Class Five: Recover At Command-Level Cost, _Fulcrum –_ yes, Captain Cassian Andor was a very valuable person.

But that night on Jedha in Jyn’s arms, Cassian had been…important. Cared for. Worth caring for. Not Captain Andor, not Fulcrum – _Cassian_. He hadn’t really understood it at the time, hadn’t been willing to risk believing it, but it had been true all the same.

Cassian turned his head and pressed his mouth against her temple, and let himself believe it now.

The hell of it was, he thought hazily as she pulled in tighter in response, the hell of it was that it didn’t change anything.

Cassian was important, but Captain Andor was _necessary._

Jyn ran her hand up his chest and down, up and down again.

“There is,” he says softly into the warm silence of the cabin, wishing he could just stay silent, knowing that he never would. “There is so much at stake.”

Jyn’s hand paused, and then moved gently up his chest again until her fingers rested lightly against the line of his collarbone, exactly where the concealed pocket on his jacket collar usually sat. She didn’t speak, but he felt her limbs slide around him, the leg she hooked over his thighs and her arms around his neck pulling him closer to her. He reached up and grabbed her fingers in response, pinning her hand in place. “It’s the right choice,” he whispered into her skin. A million other words flit through his head – _I’m sorry, this is the reality we live in, my only other option would be to turn my back on all of this and that’s not an option at all, you know that, you know me, don’t you know me?_ – but he couldn’t seem to catch them and force them out in a coherent order, and he was just…tired.

“It’s your choice,” Jyn murmured into his shoulder, and he knew better than to think it was a snipe at him. It was as close to agreeing as she could get, as much of a concession as she was willing to make.

He could have let it end there, perhaps he should have. But keeping his mouth shut at the wrong times had led them to this point; silence had left him hunting through the crowds for her face, silence had left him standing in the galley with cold fear and burning rage. Silence had made her flinch back from him. So Cassian pushed back the weary desire to just close his mouth and close his eyes, and hunted instead for the right words. Or, hells, any words at all.

“You don’t have to like it,” he started, pushing her hand harder against his collarbone to emphasize his point.

“Neither do you,” she cut him off before he could continue, and Cassian blinked down at the top of her head, thrown by both her words and the quiet but firm way she had said them.

 _You didn’t even look_ , _she hisses at him, her eyes wild, her face flushed red with anger and fear. She thinks he meant to take the pill, meant to die by his own hand in an alley of Kafrene and leave her behind without a word._

_Across the chaotic battlefield of the landing pad, Jyn looks at him through the scope of his rifle, her eyes dark, her arms twisted brutally back by Stormtroopers. She nods, a gesture that is both permission and apology. Permission to kill her, apology for being caught._

“I don’t,” he said at last, and to his surprise found that it was more true than he had understood, before. He had always thought it a grim reality of his life – but in a way, a comforting one. No matter how bad his situation, he had always known in the back of his mind that he had a way out. He hadn’t liked it, perhaps, but he had…appreciated it. Valued it. Been _grateful_ for it.

It felt…less comforting now.

“I don’t,” he repeated, and then rolled on his side and wound his arms around her, pushed his leg between hers, buried his face against her neck and let the momentary resentment for the loss of his small comfort pass. It had been a hollow comfort anyway, not nearly as substantial, not nearly as _real_ as the fierce way Jyn latched on to him in return, hard enough to bruise.

“I know,” she said, her heartbeat solid against his chest. She tugged the blanket up around them both, blocking out Kafrene’s harsh light, blocking out the indifferent galaxy. “I know, Cassian.”

He did not really sleep, but the thick, warm silence around them felt oddly detached from the waking world. Cassian kept his eyes closed and listened to Jyn breathe, and let his thoughts drift incoherent and idle. It was not sleep, but it was restful. It was enough.

Jyn heard it first, shifting her weight and grumbling wordlessly in her throat. He picked it up a moment later – the faint but insistent beeping of the alarm.

Cassian tilted his head and pressed his lips to Jyn’s pulse. She sighed, ran a finger down the curve of his cheek, scraping through his beard.

Then they sat up, shoving aside the blanket and squinting groggily into the dim yellow-lit cabin. Jyn slipped around him, grabbed her boots and weapon harness, and strode up towards the cockpit, probably to check her security cameras before they left. Cassian shuffled to the tiny ‘fresher, scrubbing a hand thoughtfully over his beard. He had let it get a little ragged over this mission, blending in better with the decidedly ragged populace in the outer rings where they spent most of their time. But Barris Clarke needed to project a much different kind of image. He had no intention of shaving his face clean, not unless it was absolutely necessary, never again. But Imperial officers of a certain rank were allowed a small range of facial hair, even if it was considered generally unfashionable. So not only could he get away with a neat goatee, but it would work with his persona’s cover story. ISA were notorious for trying to appear humble and friendly and maybe a little awkward, while actually being hardened investigators searching for someone to blame for whatever problem had been brought to their attention. That was why they were so damn unpopular. So a beard would work for Cassian; he wanted Clarke to look like an Imperial officer attempting not to look like an Imperial officer.

It took him about ten minutes to shave, gel down his hair into a neat, professional style, and other basic prep work. His middle-class businessman’s suit hung inside the tiny storage space just outside the ‘fresher, and he took it back to the cabin to change. He could hear Jyn banging around in the galley now, and smelled the sweet red tea she favored brewing on the stove. His stomach growled – it had been almost a full day since he had eaten. Better grab something before they left. The suit was familiar; he had worn it on multiple missions in the last three or four years, and it had been tailored to him both to make him look more respectable and to accommodate at least two weapons hidden on his body, should he choose to risk carrying them. Cassian hadn’t worn it, however, since before the Coruscant mission, and he found to his displeasure but not surprise that it felt a bit more loose, requiring a tighter belt.

By the time he was fully dressed, the tantalizing smell of frying meat and toasting bread had mixed with the scent of tea. Cassian’s stomach growled again. He followed his nose out into the galley in time to see Jyn dumping a small pile of simmering sausages and only slightly burnt toast onto two of their metal plates, the tea already poured and cooling in mugs. Her weapon harness was in place and loaded with her blaster, truncheons, a large vibroblade tucked in the back of her belt, another strapped to her thigh, and at least three more hidden under her clothes. Her jacket would cover most of those weapons, but the thigh-blade would be visible. A blade was permissible on Kafrene, but had the chance of calling in attention. Apparently, she had decided that the risk was worth having another weapon to hand. Cassian had donned his camouflage, but Jyn had dressed for war.

He prodded the edge of a slice of toast, scraping the burnt flecks off, and smiled innocently in response to her defensive scowl. She shoved a plate at him and carried hers to the table, attacking her own food with her usual single-minded focus. Jyn wasn’t a skilled cook, but she joked once that she was a champion eater, and he agreed.

They ate in silence, both of them ignoring the chrono on the bulkhead, ignoring the noises of the port waking up for the day cycle outside the _Malta_ , most of all ignoring the small blank datadrive sitting on the edge of the table. If all went well, that datadrive would soon be the focus of their mission, carrying all the information they needed to finally pick apart the rumors about a new Imperial weapon. All the information they needed to finally know how Galen Erso factored into that weapon.

Cassian caught Jyn glancing at the datadrive, then him in a guilty glance, as if she was ashamed to be thinking about it. He reached across the small table and brushed the back of her hand, pleasantly surprised when she immediately flipped her palm up and wound her fingers through his.

“I want,” Cassian started, because silence had only driven her away – but then he found himself stalled, uncertain where to go now that he had begun.

“After,” Jyn absolved him after a few painfully long moments of silence. Her lips curved softly into a half smile as he rubbed his thumb over her fingers in thanks. She swallowed and said in a cautious tone, a woman feeling her way through a mine field, “We can…talk about it. After.”

“Alright.” Cassian studied her face, noting that while the lines around her eyes were a little smoother than last night, the tension in her shoulders was still there. Not his fault, but still there. He considered how dangerous today’s operation would be, how Jyn would be in the upper levels watching him through cameras and unable to run to his aid if it went wrong. Well, not entirely his fault, anyway.

She took a deep breath, then pulled her hand free, grabbing her dishes and dumping them in the tiny sonic cleaner built into the counter by the sink. Cassian brought over his own, and by the time he had disposed of them in the sonic, Jyn had picked up her scarf from the gear bench and was settling it around her neck, her last piece of armor now in place. She gave him that half-smile again when she saw him watching, although this time it was brittle around the edges, Sergeant Erso already sharpening her knives in preparation for battle.

Cassian impulsively stepped close and tucked the edge of the scarf in, hiding the small gleaming star that had been peeking over the folds at her throat. Jyn stood still, her eyes on his face, her hands resting on the handle of her truncheon and the hilt of her blaster. When the stars were safely out of sight, Cassian cupped his hands around her jawline and brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, enjoying the sensation, enjoying the way her eyes slid half-closed even though the sharp line of her jaw stubbornly refused to soften.

She raised a hand, and when he glanced down at it, he saw the red Lullaby sitting in her palm.

He sighed, let her go, and took it. It slotted into the hidden pocket on his suit collar as easily as it did into his leather jacket, as it did in all his many different disguises. Familiar, but no longer a comfort.

Jyn raised her hand again, and for a witless, confused moment Cassian thought _but I already have one_ before he realized what she was doing. Looking him right in the eye, Jyn tucked the second red pill under the edge of her scarf. “It’s the right thing to do,” she told him, a spark of defiance flaring behind the calm professional tone.

He knew his line in the script, but the words _it’s your choice_ stuck in his suddenly dry throat, the breakfast now sitting like a heavy lump in his guts and the lingering taste of the red tea she liked burning in his mouth. He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, but she was right, _he_ was right, this was the world that they lived in and until the Empire was gone, truly gone, this was the choice they had made.

He could not bring himself to say it, any of it, but he looked in her eyes and saw that she knew anyway. She knew.

They walked without a word out of the _Malta_ into the perpetual yellow light of Kafrene, Cassian in his disguise, Jyn in her battle gear. The busy Resh district hummed with the bustle of the crowds, port traffic and miners headed to their work. At the heavily graffiti-covered gate of the port, they paused only long enough to glance at one another. He lifted a hand and flicked a half-wave to her, she nodded and turned on her booted heel. Overhead, the black buildings of Kafrene’s Osk district lunged down towards them, perpetually reaching for its other half. Jyn vanished into the crowds of Resh, and Cassian dropped his hand.

A moment later, he stepped forward too, and let the shadows of Kafrene close around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It's interesting because… Cassian sees a lot of himself in Jyn. That hurts - the mirror hurts._  
>  \- Diego Luna


	10. Day 9: Deployment

**[Security Station Qusongite, The Gold Ring, Resh District]**

 

The streets outside Security Station Qusongite were even more colorful than the last time he had lingered here. More names in improbably bright colors decorated the black plas-steel buildings, the tastefully discreet wastebins, even the surface of the street. The pink flowers on the signpost had grown into a full tree that half-obscured the street name. The burning, writhing Human figure on a nearby shop wall was now joined by half a dozen more sentient outlines: a Twi’lek, a Rodian, a figure drawn all in white (but lacking the distinctive Stormtrooper helmet – even in their tiny rebellion, it seemed the locals knew which lines were too dangerous to cross). The majority of the area was still an ominous dark monochrome, but color swirled and seeped in around the edges, further and further. In a day or two, Cassian imagined that the cleaners would push through here and acid-wash away all the chaotic signs of life, but for now it wriggled and bloomed through the cracks, unrepentant and relentless.

By contrast, the interior of the Security Station was stark white, accented solely by the solid black desk of the quarterdeck’s security checkpoint and the dark grey uniforms of the two Humans sitting behind it. Security Guard La Kai Yunas met his eyes as he approached, and he saw her jaw tighten. She stood up a hair too quickly to be natural, but Cassian mentally absolved her of her mistakes. Considering what was at stake and her own lack of training, she was doing remarkably well. Besides, there was no one here to see her except himself and the other guard, who was focused intently only on Cassian. Security Guard Clayton Shaner Ile also stood up as Cassian approached the desk, and put on what he probably thought was a friendly, welcoming smile.

“Barris,” he drawled, “Well, how about that? Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Officer Shaner Ile.” Cassian gave him the barest professional nod, keeping his face impassive. The guard’s lips thinned slightly at the mild snub, but he flicked a little wave and then folded his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders.

“Agent Clarke,” Yunas said with only a mild emphasis on the correct name, an unspoken admonishment to Shaner Ile for being too familiar. Cassian saw the other guard take the hint, his expression definitely turning sour around the edges this time. It was one thing for an ISA agent to snub his friendship, another thing entirely to be corrected by Yunas. It might simply be a competitive personality, Cassian thought, but more likely Shaner Ile just liked having power over Yunas, and disliked any tiny implication that she was not afraid of him.

But Shaner Ile’s dominance issues were not his problem, Cassian reminded himself firmly. If all went well today, they wouldn’t be Yunas’ issues any more, either. He refocused himself on Yunas, watching her tap on her screen as if wholly absorbed in the task. “You are on the Registered Guest List for today,” she told him (a little too much relief in her voice as she did – but that was also forgivable. Yunas knew how well-encrypted Imperial systems were, but she had no idea how good Jyn was at breaking into them). “I’ve logged your arrival and I have your badge prepared, sir.”

“Appreciated,” Cassian stepped back as Yunas rifled through a drawer in the desk, and then walked around the reinforced counter to hand it to him.

“I will escort you through the scanners, sir,” she said with just a little too much emphasis on ‘scanners.’ Kafrene’s security stations had high-grade weapon scanners; they were so good that Cassian typically went into these sorts of missions completely unarmed. If he walked through that scanner with so much as a set of brass knuckles, security would come down on him like a rain of flaming meteors, and someone would definitely check the Registered Guests List, thus discovering that Yunas had added him in herself, and worse, his security badge was actually loaded with Yunas' own codes, and not anything approved and issued by ISA.

But Cassian was not new to this game, and besides, for once he had a workaround. Cassian took the heavy, distinctly-shaped badge that she handed him and caught her eye deliberately. “Understood,” he said firmly, broadcasting calm and reassurance. She relaxed and led him past the desk to the solid white door in the back of the quarterdeck, coming to parade rest at his side and waiting politely for him to pin the badge to his suit’s breast pocket. Cassian took his time doing so. The badge was made of thick metal alloy, worked into a distinct chevron shape that pointed downward. It looked vaguely like an elongated shield or a truncated blade, and it weighed heavy on the material of his suit. Cassian pinned and re-pinned it until it hung exactly where he wanted it to be, ignoring Shaner Ile’s impatient fidgeting and Yunas’ tense stillness. He could not walk through that scanner without this badge in exactly the right place, no matter how fussy it made him appear. Perhaps Agent Barris Clarke simply is a fussy person, he thought a bit defiantly, and then nodded with satisfaction as the badge finally settled into the right place.

Yunas reached over and placed her hand against a small scan-pad in the wall, and the white door slid back as the hum of scanners coming alive poured out from the open doorway. First moment of truth, he thought.

Without hesitation, Cassian walked through.

The hum of the scanners continued undisturbed.

“The Station Captain’s office is up the stairs and down the right hallway,” Yunas said politely behind him, and Cassian was impressed at how bland she sounded. Not bad for someone who wasn’t a trained liar. “If you need anything, Requisitions is on your left, down three doors. The Officer’s Lounge is down this hall, second right.”

Cassian nodded, and waited for the last piece of information he needed. Yunas licked her lips swiftly, but otherwise didn’t skip a beat as she delivered it. “Meals are served until the fourth hour,” she finished, and dropped out of parade rest to walk back towards the check in desk. “Have a good day, sir.”

“Thank you, Officer La Kai,” Cassian replied in the same indifferent tone, and walked down the hallway without looking back. Behind him, he heard Shaner Ile murmur something that was cut off when the door hissed and snapped shut. He moved with a brisk stride and a vague expression, and the few soldiers and administrative officers wandering through the corridors shuffled aside for him without a second glance. The trick to infiltration, he had long ago learned, was first to act like he belonged, and second to act like he was _busy_.

He strode right past the open door of the Officer’s Lounge, noting the random handful of people in grey uniforms inside, turning right at the hallways just beyond the lounge and finding himself in a narrow corridor lined with storage closets. He scanned over the cheap doors until he found the door marked as Yunas had indicated, _storage M4_. He glanced down the corridor – no people, no visible security cams – and then steeled his nerves. This was the second moment of truth – either Yunas had stashed what he needed in here, or she had already ratted him out to her command and behind this door was the trap that snared him.

He touched his breast pocket, feeling the hard lines underneath the security badge. No time to waste. He pushed the door open.

A dark, cramped space, lit by a single red bulb and full of dusty crates. Cassian slipped in and hunted until he found the large briefcase shoved in the corner. Briefly, he wondered if Shaner Ile had given Yunas any grief about bringing in a clunky accessory like this, but more likely she had simply showed up to work early and tucked it away before he had the chance. However she had done it, Yunas had pulled through on her part of the deal. The briefcase opened to reveal all the contents exactly as he had packed them himself. Most of the space was filled with the carefully pressed and starched Imperial officer’s uniform (no boots, but he was already wearing a set under the business suit’s trousers, and no one had noticed so far), a small comm, and an empty datadrive with a small array of connector cords. Yunas hadn't known what kind of drive connector he would need to hook into the servers, so he had come prepared as possible. Cassian stripped off his suit jacket and trousers and slid into the uniform with practiced ease. It took only a moment to transfer the contents of his suit pockets into his uniform pockets. He tucked the empty datadrive into his belt and settled the uniform cap over his gelled hair, angling it slightly low over his face. It was still within regulation angles, but it would effectively cover his eyes from the high-mounted security cameras throughout the station.

As he dressed, he reflected that with the uniform on, the odds Cassian would be caught had dropped significantly, but the danger if he _was_ caught had now risen dramatically.

 _You may have heard of the Chandrila Convention of 3155,_ one of his first instructors intoned in Cassian’s memory, _where the galaxy’s governments agreed not to abuse prisoners of war. Maybe that even makes you feel safe, assume the Empire will treat you with the respect due a soldier. Well, wearing the enemy’s uniform does not make you a soldier, kid,_ the old Rattataki warrior thumped a heavy grey fist against the table. _It makes you a **spy**. Technically, _ the old man grinned, possibly in an attempt to scare teenaged Cassian with the glinting red jewels embedded in his sharp teeth, _technically it is impossible to commit a war crime against a spy._

Teenaged Cassian had merely shrugged at the bloody-gemmed smile. His childhood school on Fest had never taught him about the Chandrila Convention, but he had learned long ago to never assume he was safe.

More idle thoughts clouding his focus. Irritably, Cassian shoved the old memories aside and finished buttoning the uniform jacket. To his pleasant surprise, there was a small holomap tucked into the briefcase that lit up into a miniature display of the whole station. An unnecessary gift – the layout of these places was almost always the same, and Cassian knew them better than most _real_ Imperial officers – but it was a nice gesture from Yunas. He scanned the map in case there was anything majorly out of place or surprising (no, it was a standard layout), and then set it back into the briefcase. He would take it out with him, give it to Analysis when he returned to the Alliance, but for now it was unneeded.

Distracted by old memories and new map, he almost forgot his security badge, and his heart twisted as he turned sharply on his heel and marched back to the discarded suit. Stupid mistakes like that could get him killed, or worse. He slapped the badge onto his jacket pocket and then, at last, slid the comm into his ear.

“Gold’s up,” he murmured.

“Blue’s up,” Jyn’s voice crackled softly in his ear immediately, and some of the tension in Cassian’s back eased, the jittery feeling bouncing around the back of his skull snapped back into cool focus.

“White’s up,” Tivik chimed in with a hoarse whisper, and Cassian could practically _hear_ the nervous mechanic sweating already. “We’re inside no problems, that grate is never patrolled and the security panel's easy to pop off,” Tivik went on, whispering so loudly in the comm that ‘troopers in the next station over could probably hear it. “We’re already in the security network and lying low in the upper – “

“In position,” Jyn cut him off, speaking low and smooth, the perfect level for her voice to carry through the earpiece but not more than a few feet away from her mouth.

“Copy, clock’s on,” Cassian replied in the same low volume. He eased out of the storage room, checking the hallways for eyes first, and turned left towards the nearest stairwell leading down into the basement.

“Eyeball, right thirty, high four,” Jyn told him. Cassian peered out from under the brim of his cap as unobtrusively as he could, and sure enough, there was the unblinking black eye of a security camera thirty degrees to his right, roughly four meters up the wall. He angled his head slightly away as he passed by it.

“There’s another scanner over the stairwell,” Tivik was speaking now in a breathy voice that was some awkward cross between a whisper and the low tones Jyn and Cassian were using.

“Standby, working,” Jyn answered, and Cassian suppressed the faint smile tugging at his lips as he heard her muted irritation at Tivik’s fumbling attempts to speak properly on the comm. Jyn could be infinitely patient when she thought someone was out of their depth, but let them flounder in a situation she expected them to handle well and she could get...touchy. Cassian turned the corner and saw the doorway leading to the stairwell a few feet ahead. As he approached, the motion sensors in the scanners hummed to life, waiting for him to cross underneath. He resisted the urge to reach up and touch his breast pocket again, but this time the badge’s cover was wholly unnecessary. And he was right - a faint beep in his ear, then “cleared, ten seconds,” Jyn informed him with perfect timing. The humming died abruptly, and Cassian walked through the doorway and started down the steps. A moment later, the humming started again, as if it had never been off.

“Sent the message to our friend,” Jyn told him as he wound his way down the black metal stairs. “Her daughter’s school contacted her and requested immediate pick up. Kid’s got measles. Eyeball, left ten, high three.”

Cassian pretended to cough into his hand, bending his head away from the camera as he walked under it and hiding his mouth as he muttered, “Measles?”

“Highly contagious disease,” she replied blandly. “Her brother caught it, too. His mom’s already picking him up.”

Tivik cut off Cassian’s response, words grating a bit as he tried to compensate for his poor volume control by dropping his voice instead. It made him sound a little comical, as if he was play-acting a monster for a children’s show. “How, uh, how did you spoof the school’s comm lines?”

“Didn’t,” Jyn said shortly, then relented after an uncomfortable beat. “Just sliced the school servers and sent the messages from the administrative offices. It will hold up.”

Cassian rounded the last curve in the stairwell, and found himself facing a long grey hallway with a small checkpoint and a single bored-looking security guard at the far end. Jyn’s voice crackled with more and more static as he walked towards the checkpoint, fading as he moved deeper into the no-comm zone. “The station captain approv- our friend’s request - shift today in orde- deal with her -mily emergency.”

“Kafrene is a low-priority system,” Cassian said, mostly for Tivik’s benefit, but also so that Jyn could hear his own comm breaking up and know what it meant. “It’s an acceptable practice to let a single guard cover the quarterdeck if there’s no major event or inspection scheduled.”

His comm hissed in his ear, and he thought he could just pick out Jyn’s voice echoing from far away before it went silent. He was in the dead zone now, buried under thick reinforced steel floors and enveloped by anti-comm fields. Cassian adjusted his security badge with a casual movement, using it as cover to feel the edges of the hard object in his breast pocket. It didn’t bring the comm magically back to life, but he felt a bit better anyway.

“Morning, sir,” the security guard at the checkpoint leapt up from his console and saluted stiffly. Just over the edge of the desk, Cassian could see multiple windows open on the console screen, the top-most of which was an empty official report, but the rest were clearly varying sites from the holonet. He pretended not to notice the colorful popup ad flashing in the corner of the screen before the guard hurriedly minimized it, and concluded that this part of the security station probably didn’t see much activity.

“Good morning. How’s your duty shift going?” He folded his hands behind his back in the casual manner of the more experienced Imperial officers, the ones who had been in the uniform for years and knew how to stand for long periods of time without locking his knees or leaning sloppily against a wall. It was a subtle signal to the guard that this officer didn’t care much about formalities, and just wanted to get on with his job.

Cassian could already see the other man relaxing from his rigid posture, even smiling tentatively as he stepped towards the door and palmed the scan-pad. “Oh, you know, living the dream, sir.”

Cassian counted down in his head – Jyn couldn’t speak to him, but she was still in the security system, watching for the moment the guard activated the door. When it slid open, he counted an extra five seconds, thanking the guard politely to cover the stall, and then walked through. The guard, pleased not to be called out for skimming the holonet while on duty, didn’t even notice the brief break in the weapon scanner’s hum as Cassian walked through.

Inside the server room, the lights were somehow even harsher than out in the grey-painted hall. The servers crowded the small space, each databank large enough to contain all of the Imperial Army’s data in the whole of the Ring of Kafrene. A precaution on the Empire's part, having all that processing power and data space available even when Qusongite could never use it all by itself. If ever something happened to one security station, any one of the others in the system could immediately copy and carry all their codes, files, comms lines, and so on. Even if only one station was left active, the Empire could continue to press it’s heavy boot on whatever neck was in it’s way.

It worked against them in this case, though, Cassian thought with grim satisfaction as he stepped up to the primary console and plugged in his datadrive. With this much processing power and hardly anything for it to do outside of a system-wide emergency, he could subvert an enormous amount of Imperial cyber-intelligence with hardly any effort. In fact, it took him less than five minutes to break through what few internal security firewalls bothered to try and block Qusongite Security Station’s direct access console. It took him five more to hunt through the entire Kafrene Imperial Fleet’s database to find…there it was.

 _Imperial Shipping and Logistics_. Terabytes and terabytes of classified shipping records, noting every single shipment that passed through Kafrene’s ports, even the ones that were erased or never entered on the “official” civilian records. Times, ships, officers sending the cargo, officers receiving…shipping manifestos. Cassian specifically made a note of the ‘Special Projects’ and ‘Priority’ files; if the Empire really was working on some new top-secret weapons research, it would definitely be marked Priority. There was even a whole section in the higher-order servers labelled _Hammertong,_ and when Cassian selected it for download, a few familiar words snagged his attention as they raced down the screen – _kyber, Geonosis, Jedha…Tarkin?_ That was odd, what did Tarkin have to do with… _Krennic_ , why did that name sound familiar? _Lemelisk,_ that name he definitely recognized, although current belief was that the bastard was dead. _Mygeeto_ , another reference to kyber, Krennic again…it all screamed by too fast for him to properly parse, and he didn’t waste a lot of effort trying. His job was to retrieve the data. Someone else would have to analyze it. The datadrive began to fill with a truly eye-watering amount of information; not as much as he had pulled from Coruscant, but certainly enough to keep Rebel Intel’s analysts happy for awhile.

A small green bar in the lower corner indicated the download was twenty percent complete, twenty-five, thirty. Cassian leaned back on his heels and watched the stream of symbols flow past him like water. Somewhere in this massive block of data was a hollow-faced man with grey hair and dark eyes, who carried none of the sharp wariness of his daughter’s green eyes but somehow still managed to look just like her.

Cassian caught himself tapping his fingers lightly under the badge on his jacket and forced his hand down, taking a deep breath.

Thirty-five percent. Forty. He thought he saw _Erso_ flash across the screen, but it was gone before he could check. Forty-five percent.

_Cassian folded his arms and leaned against the nearest console in the Alliance Command, too exhausted to stand at attention, his head still aching from his brush with poisoned death. I assume my job is to track down Galen Erso’s current project?_

_Preferably, you would track down Galen Erso first, Captain, Mothma replied serenely. He could be a wellspring of information for us, as well as – she glanced aside to Organa, who nodded - other uses._

If this data led to Galen Erso, Cassian reflected as he watched the download bar climb. Fifty percent. Fifty-five. If it led to Galen Erso, he already knew that he would be sent to retrieve the scientist, and that Jyn would be assigned to go with him. Jyn knew it, too. That had been the deal from the start, hadn’t it? She had known that when he asked if she wanted to stay with him. 

The comm crackled quietly in his ear, useless in this dead zone.

Perhaps that was why she had stayed, even when he made her angry, even when he froze her out. Cassian was probably the best chance she had ever had at finding her missing parent.

Sixty percent.

She had wrapped herself around him so tightly in the dark, and whispered her painful history into his skin. But then, that had been before he dragged her into Command, stood over her while strangers looked on in silent judgment, and forced her to reveal all those secrets for them. For the Alliance. For the cause.

Sixty-five percent.

He really couldn’t blame her, if she resented him for that. If she only reached out to him afterwards because she was lonely, too. Because he was something to pass the time while they looked for her father. He was used to Captain Andor being a means to an end – he expected it. But if Cassian himself was just…

Seventy percent.

If she left, Cassian thought as he watched the data streams rush past, if she left, he would ask Draven for a soft mission somewhere far from Command. Maybe he could turn in his Fulcrum clearance entirely and join one of the sleeper cells in the Mid Rim or the Colonies. Those kinds of missions were dangerous in a gentle sort of way, because the agent wore the persona so long that it often ended up becoming part of them. He had never done one himself, but Cassian had seen more than a few such agents activated. Sleeper agents integrated into whatever community they joined, which was of course the point, but the integration tended to rearrange their priorities, sometimes making it harder for them to ‘wake up’ again. Wear a mask long enough, Cassian knew, and the mask might become as real as the person underneath it. ‘Going native,’ Intel called it, and the younger agents said it like an insult, but the older ones almost never did.

There were worse things than being someone else for a little while.

Seventy-five percent.

Cassian rubbed a hand roughly over his face, feeling out the sharply-shaved lines of his goatee, scratching briefly at the stiff collar of the wool uniform jacket. He wouldn’t do it, of course. He wouldn’t turn his back on the fight and run off to play farmer or merchant or whatever soft job was available. He was far too valuable to the Fulcrum network, to Alliance Command, and he could do so much more as an agent than as a sleeper, even a recruiting sleeper. If Jyn left, if she was only using him to get to Galen Erso, it would be…painful. Devasting. Emotionally compromising. Something. But he would do what he always did, what he had been trained to do – compartmentalize. Refocus. Move forward. He thought of Jedha City, torn apart piece by efficient piece. He thought of the millions dead in the Antar Atrocity. The slaves suffering under Encomienda on Esseles. The Citadel of Ebenmal. The Occupation of Fest. No, Cassian Andor would not run away from the trillions of people across the galaxy living in the shadow of Imperial Star Destroyers. What was a shattered heart, to the Dhen-Moh genocides? What was an empty bed, to the empty towns on Kobal?

Eighty percent.

Still, it was nice to imagine, even for just a moment, that he could leave it all behind him. If she left.

_What about you, Cassian breathed into her throat, not quite catching the groan that rolled up from his chest as she dug pulled him closer, what do you want?_

_This, she breathed into his ear, dragging her hands from his hair to his neck to his shoulders. You. And then she laughed, bright and soft and glowing like a sunrise._

_Everything._

He believed her. He had to.

Eighty-five percent.

Cassian rubbed his face again, tapped his fingers to the hard shape in his pocket, and then turned his attention back to the console screen. He still couldn’t read more than the occasional word, but it was a better way to spend his time than pointless speculation and wandering memories about –

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT!**

Cassian’s insides froze as the alarms screamed through the small space of the server room. He checked the green bar – no, it was still running, eighty-eight percent, no one had (yet) detected the download and initiated shut down. This was something else in the station, something –

Jyn.

Or Tivik. Or even Yunas, shit, he had no way of knowing.

Eighty-nine percent.

If he ripped the drive out and ran for it now, he might miss valuable data. He might even accidentally miss Galen Erso.

The door behind him burst open, instantly doubling the volume of the blaring alarms. “Sir!” The guard yelled over the cacophony, “We are entering lockdown. I need to secure this room. Please exit immediately!”

No time to think about it. No time to hesitate. Cassian stepped smoothly in front of the console and turned to face the guard. “What was that?” he shouted back, tapping his ear and frowning in confusion and a hint of helplessness, just a clueless officer caught in the chaos. “What’s going on?”

It worked; the guard stepped closer, and instead of reaching for his blaster he merely flapped his hands towards the door as if he meant to shoo Cassian through it. “You have to leave, sir! Got to lock this room down!”

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT!**

“Understood,” Cassian shouted, glancing down at the screen. Ninety-three percent, and anyway if he grabbed the drive now, the guard would remember it later. He might even attempt to stop Cassian from doing it.

He felt the decision settle over him like a cold mantle on his shoulders. Only one option.

He stepped away from the console, leaving the drive plugged in and still running. The guard stepped aside to let him go, looking relieved that the dumb officer was finally complying. Cassian saw the moment the guard noticed the console running – _downloading_ \- and watched for one long, dark moment as suspicion filtered across the guard’s face. He kept walking, right past the guard and towards the door without pause.

The guard turned towards the console, frowning increasing as he peered at the screen, the datadrive, the ninety-five percent flashing in the corner. “Wait, what are you – “

Cassian reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small vaguely-chevron-shaped knife, slotting his fingers into the hollow handle ( _she wrapped his fingers carefully around the little blade, lifted his knuckles to her lips to press a brief kiss to them_ ), and with the precision of practice, he slammed his fist against the back of the guard’s neck. The katar slid neatly between the vertebrae, severing the spinal cord and dropping the hostile to the ground like a sack of pta fruit. If the man whimpered on the way down, the screaming alarms smothered it.

Warm blood trickled down Cassian’s knuckles, white around the handle of the little blade, and he knelt to wipe it clean on the grey uniform on the floor.

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT!**

He stood up. Ninety-seven percent.

His comm was silent.

He put the katar back in his jacket pocket. The move knocked the security badge askew. He no longer needed it to hide the blade, so he ignored it.

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION!**

Ninety-eight percent.

Blood pooled out across the dull grey floor. Cassian stepped to the side to keep his boots clean. He touched his ear, as if he could make the damn comm suddenly work by pressing hard against it. As if he could talk to Jyn just by wishing hard enough.

Ninety-nine percent.

**AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT!**

Somewhere above him, doors were already slamming shut. Scanners were buzzing regardless of motion sensors, ready to mark any warm body that passed by without the appropriate badge. The quarterdeck was probably already sealed, although he could hack that door easily enough.

Had Jyn set this alarm off? No, more likely it was Tivik. Yunas was already out of the building and Cassian hadn’t triggered a firewall in the server. It had to be Tivik, somehow.

But Tivik was with Jyn.

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION!**

Download complete.

He ripped the drive free of the console

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED**

initiated a short-term memory wipe

**INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN**

jammed the drive into his pocket and turned

**ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!**

and burst through the door, running as fast as he could up the white hallway and to the stairwell. When he reached the stairs, he slowed to a brisk walk, fighting to keep his breathing even, and started up the stairs two at a time, keeping his head turned away from the cameras as he called under his breath.

“Gold’s up.”

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT!**

“Gold’s up,” he tried again as he rounded the top of the stairs, his voice turning a little ragged with exertion. ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT!

Heavy bootsteps pounded up and down the hallways just above him, shouting voices he couldn’t pick out from the echoing shriek of the alarms. One more time, his breath harsh, his voice strained, Cassian called out into the silence of the comm. “ _Gold’s up_.”

He passed through the doorway, and the weapon scanner overhead beeped an alarm as it picked up the blade in his pocket. The tinny sound was swallowed up by the much louder and more urgent alarms overhead, but sooner or later someone would notice the scanner alert and come to investigate. Cassian strode down the hallways, his face grim and his shoulders set, blending in perfectly with the streaming security guards and Stormtroopers who thronged through the station around him.

He reached the hallway with the storage closets – there were a few ‘troopers digging with quick, excited movements through the storage closet at the far end of the corridor, but Cassian slipped into storage unit M4 fast enough that none of them even registered his presence before he was out of sight and shutting the door behind him.

He leaned back against the cold metal, pressed his hand to his ear again, and in a low voice that was swallowed by the alarms, he asked one last time.

“Are you there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quarterdeck is traditionally a specific area on a ship where the captain steers the ship and hangs his standard. In modern-day military bases, it is generally the "Front Office" of any base, the building where the Base Commander has an office and hangs his unit's standard. 
> 
> The Chandrila Convention of 3155 is not canon, but it's supposed to be the Star Wars version of the Geneva Conventions, which set out in detail how prisoners of war were meant to be treated. The point about a prisoner caught wearing the enemy's uniform not being recognized as a prisoner of war is [true in our world](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule107_sectionb) \- which, as Cassian's instructor noted, means it is technically impossible to [commit a war crime against a spy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant). (Granted, there are still laws about humane treatment and human rights etc, but let's not waste a lot of time imagining the Empire bothers a lot with _those_.)
> 
> [Hammertong](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Star/Legends) was the original code name for the Death Star project, which was originally conceived by a guy named Raith Seinar, who shared it with Wilhulff Tarkin, who gave it to Palpatine, who assigned it to [Bevel Lemelisk](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bevel_Lemelisk), who was a total bastard and died at least six times. Long story. (I assume that none of this is actually spoilers for anyone bothering to read this story).
> 
> Jedha, Mygeeto, Geonosis were all among the planets associated with the Death Star's construction, and all suffered for it.
> 
> The Occupation of Fest is mostly inferred rather than canon.
> 
> [Encomienda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomienda) was a slave labor "system" used by the Spanish conquistadors. [Esseles](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Esseles) is a canon planet in SW that suffered pretty badly during the Clone Wars and then the Galactic Civil war from severe terrorist attacks followed by Republic/Imperial occupation. I combined the two.
> 
> The [Antar Atrocity](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Antar_Atrocity) was a canon event.
> 
> So was the fall of [The Citadel of Ebenmal](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Citadel_of_Ebenmal).


	11. Day 9: Contingencies, Section I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, this chapter got to 12k, so I split it. The second half will be up later tonight or tomorrow, because I need a little time to edit.
> 
> Warning for a brief dissociative episode.

**[Security Station Qusongite, The Gold Ring, Resh District]**

 

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION!**

The comm hissed in his ear, and then a tense voice crackled through the noise. “ – said go! The ‘troop…re shooting and Janan said to go! She said we had t…but my ar… _bhadwe ki nasal!”_

Another loud hiss, Tivik’s tremulous voice cut off. Cassian pressed as hard as he could against his ear - nothing. He waited a beat longer, not daring to call out again in case the Stormtroopers down the corridor had moved closer to him. Not daring to breath in case he missed a low voice murmuring his name.

The comm stayed quiet save for the low hiss of static.

**ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT!**

“Gold’s up,” Cassian said quietly into the comm. “Blue, please respond.”

Static.

_Janan said to go._

So Tivik wasn’t with Jyn any more, and she wasn’t answering. Cassian grabbed the briefcase he had tucked into the corner and flipped it open, yanking out the holomap that Yunas had left him. Four decks between him and the internal security hub where they had been hunkering down, crossing wires and slicing the unguarded automated security systems. He opened the overlay menu and flicked on all the security checkpoints. Little red dots lit up along the glowing blue passageways of the map, clustering particularly dense in the middle decks. Orange dots indicating weapon scanners (which at the moment were probably repurposed to ident-scanners, too) filled in the blank spots between the red.

Cassian’s stomach sank. He could maybe manage to slip unnoticed through one deck, possibly two if he was very lucky. But all four, during a lockdown – especially a lockdown that would eventually discover the dead guard and the massive security breach in the High Security zone in the basement…

**ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT!**

_She smiled, and on her face the sallow light of Kafrene’s day cycle turned golden and warm. “We have,” her voice soft and a little hesitant as she glanced at the chrono, as if she wasn’t quite sure she was allowed to ask, “a little time.”_

If he left and she was hurt, or trapped in here…

No. He had to do as Jyn asked. He had to go, and trust that she would be right behind him.

Or maybe even in front of him, he reflected as he yanked off the Imperial uniform and packed it into the case, slipping back into the businessman’s suit and running a hand over his hair. If she was already out, over the roof and down the many catwalks that lined the black walls outside, well, she would be furious if he lingered inside without backup. And rightly so. The datadrive, for all that it was barely the size of his palm and as thin as a Human hair, weighed heavy in his business suit pocket. Cassian tucked the katar into his other trouser pocket. It was closer to his hand than the breast pocket, and at this point, a weapon scanner picking up the little blade was the least of his worries.

No footsteps outside the storage compartment, or at least none that he could pick up over the scream of the alarms. Cassian wiped his clammy hands against his shirt under the jacket where nothing would show, and then picked up the briefcase and strode out of the closet as if he belonged there.

The hall was empty, but just around the nearest corner he could hear the stomp of boots and someone shouting over a comm. Cassian straightened his shoulders and walked calmly in the opposite direction, ducking past the now-empty officer’s lounge. The door to the quarterdeck was closed up ahead, but no one was stationed by it – at least, not on this side. There was a good chance that he would open that door and find a squad of ‘troopers on the other side. Depending on which direction the blasters were facing, either Cassian would slam the door shut and run for it, or Agent Clarke would call out and demand to know what was happening and who was in charge. Even if there were no Stormtroopers, Security Guard Shaner Ile was probably sitting out there itching to be involved in the action. Cassian’s knuckles felt tacky with drying blood as he slipped his hand into his pocket and gripped the katar again.

**ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED**

No time. He had to go.

The door was locked, but he scanned his security badge loaded with Officer La Kai’s codes and it slid open. Cassian raised his chin and tried to look like he was completely relaxed even as he braced to run for his life.

The quarterdeck was empty.

Cassian stepped cautiously out into the cold white space, automatically closing the door behind him as he peered around at the unmanned desk, the empty space between himself and the door. This…had to be a trap, right? Even in a smaller low-threat security zone like this, the quarterdeck of an Imperial base was never, ever allowed to be unmanned. Cassian could think of at least five regulations that would severely punish anyone who left such a post unattended just off the top of his head. Especially during a lockdown.

He glanced back at the floor behind the desk, the only spot he couldn’t see clearly from the door – no, there was no body slumped back behind the heavy black metal. Officer Clayton Shaner Ile was just…gone. The quarterdeck was unmanned.

 _Mierda_.

**ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE STATION!**

The security cameras in the upper corners of the room stared at him balefully, and Cassian was careful not to look directly at either of them, keeping his head bent as he walked forward. Lockdown was still being initiated, but there was a good chance someone was already watching those camera feeds. If he stuck around here, the quarterdeck would not be empty for long.

The front door was of course sealed, a thick blast door slammed over the normal entrance, the faint hum of a localized force field reinforcing the heavy metal. Cassian set his briefcase down next to it and pulled out the katar. A flick of the thin blade popped the panel next to the blast door open, and then it was just a matter of cutting the correct wires and splicing them together. It took him less than ten seconds to get the blast door to slide open – the weakest part of any Imperial facility security was always the blast doors, any idiot could hotwire them – but the force field took another forty seconds of carefully rerouting the power cells for the blast door to the generator for the shield.

**INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED WITHIN THE**

Heavy footsteps, muffled by the security door on the back wall, thudded into his hearing. Stormtroopers were headed towards the quarterdeck, at top speed. Agent Clarke was burned, definitely. No time to turn around and look. Cassian’s back crawled, but he kept it squarely turned away from the door, his attention on the force field generator. Just one…more…

**LOCKDOWN! ALERT! AN INTRUDER HAS BEEN**

The force field snapped and crackled once in protest, then with a small spray of sparks, it died.

“Gold’s out,” he breathed into the comm, just in case, and scooped up his briefcase as he bolted out the now open door. He turned sharply on his heel just outside the threshold, again taking care to keep his head turned away from the camera mounted over the entrance. He closed his fist around the spliced wires as he darted through the door, yanking them loose. The blast doors sparked again and slammed down behind him, narrowly missing his arm as he dove out of the way. From the acrid scent he could just detect coming from the other side of the door, the wires actually sparked themselves into a small electrical fire in his wake. That should slow them down for a few minutes, and if he was lucky, it would melt the panel entirely. But no time to wait around and see. Cassian turned sharply and headed for the alleyway where Yunas once met her green-haired spouse in secret. His instincts screamed that he should be putting as much distance between himself and Qusongite as possible, run, climb, head down and lose himself in a crowd, anything! But –

The alarms were muted out here, barely more than a distant muffled howl and easily mistaken for the warning klaxons that sounded at the crosspoints just before a Ring shifted. It wouldn’t stay that way, however. Not once the station commander discovered the secure servers were compromised. Once _that_ happened, the military would lock down the entire district, probably the entire port of Kafrene. The chrono was counting down for them all, Alliance agents and Partisan and (former) Imperial Guard alike. If they weren’t off-world by the time lockdown really took effect...

Distantly, Cassian registered that his fingers were aching, curled too tightly around the handle of the katar.

The metal catwalks overhead hung like a regimented spiderweb between the pas-steel buildings, winding and crisscrossing around one another until he could barely see the dark mass of the city’s second half looming through them. To his left, Qusongite’s outer wall ran smooth and dark down the alley until the tangle of Kafrene’s streets cut it off. To his right, stylized and brightly colored words and symbols cramped up against one another along the edges of the wall and around a shuttered window, various languages all shouting over one another. _Vigga was once in this location! For a good time comm lutenant sorbani at code 888A67U! skoti transport me skyward! fuck tha bucket hedz!_

“Gold’s up,” Cassian said hoarsely into the comm, staring at the garish colors until they seemed to blur and run together, the thick metal walls closing in around him and crushing down on the fragile scribbles. Crushing down on his fragile body. He paused, the katar tight in one hand, the briefcase handle slippery with sweat in the other. “Gold’s up.”

Something clanked overhead. Cassian dropped the briefcase and reared back, setting his shoulders against the painted wall and lifting the katar –

“It’s me!” Tivik squawked from the fire escape landing one level above him. The little man flapped one arm at Cassian in frantic surrender, crouching on the black metal lattice. Even from here, Cassian could see the sheen on his forehead, the tight lines around his eyes as they darted back and forth. “It’s me! Ti- White! White’s up!”

Cassian leaned to the side and looked up the catwalk behind Tivik. Empty.

“She’s not – hang on, wait, wait,” Tivik turned awkwardly on the landing and fumbled for the dropdown ladder that would lead to the street. His back was to Cassian and the angle was difficult, but there was something off about the way he moved, a slow clumsiness that didn’t seem entirely natural. Cassian lowered the katar but did not sheath it. The reason for Tivik’s jerky movement became apparent as he clambered awkwardly down the rusty rungs of the metal ladder; something was wrong with his right arm. He held it against his ribs tightly, his right hand gripping his shirt so tightly his knuckles were white and shaking. He nearly crashed into Cassian when he landed heavily on the ground, off balance and terrified. Cassian stepped back automatically, dodging the flailing hand that Tivik threw out to catch himself.

“Janan,” he said, throat dry. He felt something pulsing in his hand – his heartbeat, his fingers were wrapped so tight around the katar that he could feel his heartbeat in them. It pounded in his chest, in his hand, _go back, go back, go back_ , but he closed his fist around it and squeezed.

“We got jumped,” Tivik darted a frantic look over his shoulder. “She said go, we gotta go! They could be coming out here any second, we gotta run, come on – “ He staggered towards Cassian, aiming for the tangle of narrow streets behind Qusongite. Planning to vanish into the labyrinth of black walls and coded graffiti, no doubt. His eyes were wide, dilated with fear and pain, his voice high and thin as he panted. Losing control, what little of it he had to begin with.

Cassian needed to get him calmed down, or at the very least, back under control. But mostly, he _needed_ to know - “What happened?”

“We gotta go,” Tivik shuddered as the alarms suddenly grew louder, the external speakers on the building coming alive with a howl of static followed by the harsh mechanized tones of an Imperial.

**ALERT! A BREACH HAS OCCURRED IN THIS SECTOR! ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN!**

Tivik gasped and spun towards the back alleys. “ _Run!_ ”

He bolted forward, and as he passed, Cassian stepped deliberately forward. Tivik’s bad arm crashed into Cassian’s shoulder hard enough to knock him back a step. The man yelped and clutched his arm, his wild stare snapping to Cassian’s face. Whatever he saw there made him blanche, but Cassian was past the point of caring about the Partisan’s opinions. If he allowed Tivik to run now, they might all be lost. So he moved between Tivik and the alleys, leaving the mechanic no option but the wide open street behind him. Cassian pretended not to notice the screaming alarms, the distant sound of engines thundering through Kafrene’s artificial atmosphere. He dropped his voice and stared directly into Tivik’s frantic eyes. “ _What happened?”_

Tivik’s mouth dropped open. “Are you _insane?_ ”

 _Very possibly_ , Cassian thought indifferently. Out loud, he narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to Tivik, crowding the man back another step, closer to the open street. There was a crash and a few mechanized shouts, the ‘troopers breaking through the blast door no doubt. Tivik threw a terrified glance back over his shoulder, then back to the Alliance agent’s face. Sweat poured down his forehead. Eyes darted back and forth, mark the weakness. Right hand was grey around the knuckles, bad injury. Soft belly. Shoulders hunched, instinctively making himself smaller. No combat stance at all, no training, no experience in hand to hand fighting. Mark. Mark. Mark.

**A BREACH HAS OCCURRED IN THIS SECTOR! ALERT!**

“That other guard,” Tivik blurted. “The Imp in the station with La Kai. We were – Janan was in the system, watching the feeds while we were watching you, and she said – mother’s mercy, Saya, we have got to – okay, okay, look, the guard, the other guy, he put some kind of report through, Janan saw it go through, um, he sent a message to the chief of the Guard. He said La Kai was in violation of – gods, Saya, please, if we don’t run now they will – he reported La Kai for adding an ISA agent to the register, I guess he checked and found out that she let you in and I don’t know, guess he figured he could get her in trouble for it. And the message went through and Janan said you would get picked up and she would get picked up and there was no way to warn you because you were in the dead zone so she set off the alarms and said to go but we got jumped as we were leaving and my arm, gods, she picked me up and shoved me and I ran, okay? That’s all I know! Now please, _please_ , we gotta _go!_ ”

**ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS INITIATE LOCKDOWN! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! AL**

He recognized the emotion that snap freezed through his stomach and his chest, racing up his throat and into his head in a web of chilled lines. He had felt it many times before, although he had spent years and years learning to shove it back, learning to break the lines and push the rest back down into his stomach. Fury, frozen as the deadlands on Fest, where the wind howled endlessly over plains so cold the snows there never melted even in the height of summer. He recognized it surging through his veins, freezing his heart, freezing the air around him, crystallizing this moment into a shard of ice around him.

_To your kind death, Guli grins at him, sliding a shotglass filled to the brim with dark red liquid across the scratched bar._

_Gravel digging into his knee, his rifle in his cold hands, green eyes in his scope, dark pit opening in his heart. She meets his eyes squarely across the chaos of the landing pad, sees his rifle, sees his face._ _And she nods._

_Janan said to go!_

A hard push at his shoulder, the mechanic trying to shove past again. Absently, he reached out and grabbed the man around the elbow. Ignored the pained yelp. Ignored the white armor flashing past the far end of the alley, marching boots on the street. Ignored the sounds of a tram derailing in the echoes of his memory.

“You left her,” he heard a voice say, cold and dead as the plains of Fest. Cold and dead as Salvor, as Fulcrum. He wasn’t sure who that voice really was, right now. Not sure who it was talking to. Ice water flooded through his veins.

The mechanic sputtered. “What was I supposed to do? I can’t fight, not like she was, I would have just got in her way and - I mean, gods, Saya, I’m sorry, but she said – she said to go! And I told her she’d get caught, I _told_ her! But she said it wasn’t a problem so I – _ah! Ah! Let go!”_

He was squeezing the mechanic’s arm. Something was grinding under his fingers. Broken bone, most likely.

_Jyn tucks the second red pill under the edge of her scarf. “It’s the right thing to do,” she says, throwing his words back to him. Quiet, defiant, her eyes locked on his. He says nothing, because she is right._

**ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!**

Prioritize.

“La Kai,” the voice spoke again, words carved from the ice inside him and set out neatly into coherent rows, into a plan. “Go to her home, collect the family. Lockdown should reach the outer ports last. Get them offworld.”

The mechanic spluttered in protest again, but he tightened his grip and the spluttering shifted immediately into cringing whimper. “Yeah, yeah, right, the family, okay. I promised a ride offworld, I remember, okay! I’ll go, just let me – “

“Take this datadrive. Give it to La Kai Yunas.” It would be her bargaining chip with Gerrera, a way for her to secure her family’s safety if the Alliance didn’t get wind of Tivik or the La Kai family before they made it back to Jedha, or wherever Gerrera bedded down at the moment. He didn’t tell that part to the mechanic, merely pulled him close and put the full force of the gale winds in his soul behind his words. “If you do not give her the drive, I will find out.” Lowered his voice, “And then I will find _you_.”

“Yeah,” the mechanic nods. Sweating. Shaking. Grey knuckles. “Yeah. Got it.”

Not a secure method of data extraction. No option. Captured Rebel Intelligence agent was a higher priority, a security breach of that magnitude ranked above a datadrive of unknown Imperial programs. The mechanic took the drive, ran down the alley. Vanished around the corner, footsteps fading into narrow alleys and the howl of spreading security alarms.

**ALERT! ALL CHECKPOINTS ARE NOW INITIATING LOCKDOWN. ALL CITIZENS REMAIN CALM AND SHELTER IN PLACE. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PEACEKEEPING ACTIVITIES. ALERT!**

Lullaby was still in the collar pocket. Briefcase was a liability. Dumpster nearby, tossed the case inside. Not a great place for it, incinerator preferred. No time.

Option: Agent Barris Clarke was burned inside Qusongite, but possibly not throughout Kafrene. Ident chip could still get him inside the next over security station. Hematite Station, ten blocks clockwise around the Gold Ring. Clarke could get him access to the security feeds, the local commander too distracted with the lockdown to question an ISA agent too closely. Captured rebel soldier would be sent out through the stations’ intranet feeds.

Alternate option: climb back up through the catwalks and to the roof of Qusongite. Unlikely the Partisan had sealed whatever exit he used up there when he ran through in a panic, could enter through that point, possibly capture and incapacitate a Stormtrooper. The armor was made to be easily resized, so it would fit any Human within an average range. Station was already in chaos, possibly could walk into the upper level security hub and see her there, see her on her knees with Stormtroopers holding her arms back awkwardly, and she would look up at him and see him through the disguise, because she always saw through his disguises and she would _nod_ –

**ALERT! DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PEACEKEEPING ACTIVITIES. ALERT!**

_You didn’t even look around, she snarls at him, eyes flashing, cheeks flushed. You didn’t even look._

Cassian closed his eyes.

Took a breath. Leaned back against the wall, putting the dumpster between himself and any view from the street. Clenched his cold hand around the katar. Around his heartbeat.

Boots thundered down the street, this time in the opposite direction. Alarms were spreading, rippling outward from the Gold Ring through the lower Rings. They would reach the docks in an hour, maybe two. Kafrene was a low-risk Imperial system;  they hadn’t run a full lockdown in years. A TIE fighter roared somewhere nearby, probably making a low circuit over the Gold Ring.  A scrape against the metal above him, the soft sound of a careful boot on the grate.

He looked up.

She slid down the ladder that Tivik had left hanging down, unkempt strands of hair falling from her bun, her heavy jacket smoking faintly along the left side where an obvious blaster mark scorched the leather. Smears of dirt covered her trouser knees and her gloved hands; a detached part of him noted that she’d been crawling somewhere filthy. Ducts, probably.

Jyn landed heavily on her feet next to him, and the sound of her quiet grunt as she caught her balance shot through the ice inside, shattering it. Cassian surged forward and grabbed her upper arms, steadying her. She reacted instantly, her arms snapping up inside his elbows to break his grip, her weight shifting back to tear herself away.

“Jyn,” he whispered, and she froze halfway through the break-away, blinking as she recognized him.

“Sorry,” she gasped, her hands latching on to his wrists, though not to throw him off. “I’m sorry. Shaner Ile tried to turn you in, they would have come looking. I didn’t know what to do.” She stepped close, her hands tight on his wrists, her voice catching on the last word. She dropped her eyes, shook her head, her shoulders slumping – shame. She was ashamed. Jyn was ashamed. “I guess I panicked,” she told his chest, “I’m sorry, Cassian, I’m so –“

Cassian kissed her. Yanked her close, buried his hands in her hair, and kissed her like a drowning man gasping for air, like a falling man clinging to a rope. She fought back, kissing him like a bite, like a challenge, her arms tight around his waist to haul him in close even as he used his height to bend her back. He gave as good as he got, and when he pulled away, she stared up at him with reddened lips and a dangerous light in her eyes.

“You waited,” she said at last, her breath warm against his cheek, her pulse pounding in her throat. He leaned down and pressed another quick, hard kiss to that proof of life.

“You asked me to,” he said, and then he let go of her face and grabbed her hand. Behind him, the sound of mechanized voices suddenly buzzed, calling to one another. Cassian didn’t turn around, he simply looked at Jyn’s face.

She didn't look over his shoulder either, her eyes intent, her hand tight around his. "Run."

“Unauthorized citizens on the street. Halt and identify.”

They ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _bhadwe ki nasal!_ = Urdu for, roughly, "illegitimate son of a pimp!" (I headcanon that one of the languages of Jedha is very similar to Urdu, largely because of Bodhi/Riz Ahmed). 
> 
> Any idiot can hotwire the blast doors on an Imperial station.  
> 


	12. Day 9: Contingencies, Section II

**[The Bismuth Labyrinth, The Gold Ring, Resh District]**

 

The alleys behind Qusongite Security Station were even more narrow than usual, and littered with debris. The cleaners, it seemed, never came back into these confusing tunnels. The graffiti, so careful in it’s defiance out on the main streets, burst into full riot on the close-pressed walls. The colors collided and bled with one another, images and words from a thousand different cultured layered over one another in one long, endless visual scream. The alleys twisted and turned in on themselves, black catwalks weaving their complex sharp-edged web overhead, cutting off any view of the sky or the looming Osk District bearing down on them. The advantage, of course, was that the catwalks also made it impossible for any TIE to spot them through the levels and levels of metal structures. There were almost no security cameras back here, either, certainly none hooked into the Imperial military network.

The disadvantage was that it was nearly impossible to navigate, with no reference point above them, and every alley an identical length of narrow walls and scattered trash on the ground. A few sentients huddled here and there in little ragged heaps, though none of them moved as Jyn and Cassian dodged and leapt over them, and he got little more than the impression of mostly non-Human faces, watching their flight impassively. The only thing that seemed to change back here was the graffiti, and Cassian caught Jyn reaching out and dragging her fingers over a flash of red amid the riot of color. He glanced behind them – echoing bootsteps, no white – and shouted over the wails of the alarms, “Partisan?”

“This way,” Jyn shouted back, and he let her pull him hard right, ducking around an upended dumpster with a red and pink scrawl he couldn’t decipher before she dragged him left, left again, straight through several intersections and then another right and the catwalks thinned overhead as they burst out into a bustling street, startling an Iktotchi who squealed and flailed backwards into an irate Human. Cassian hurriedly turned his head to avoid letting either sentient get a good view of his face before Jyn dragged him into the thick of the crowd, headed for what looked like – yes, a crossing point into the Silver Ring. He could see the thin line of red lights in the ground where the locking ring was nestled between the Gold and Silver streets. The lights were dark, the klaxons silent, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they lit up, before the harsh voice booming from the speakers behind him began to call for citizens to clear the streets here, too. Make way for the Stormtroopers, do not interfere (a phrase he had heard so many times in his life, always in Imperial cities, a mantra the Empire adored above all others, Do Not Interfere), but for now the speakers were silent.

Jyn pulled on his hand, and Cassian followed. Just as they neared the locking ring, he glanced up at the nearest billboard and noted the chrono running along the bottom of it. He tugged on Jyn’s hand, slowing. She frowned as she looked up at him, but she slowed her pace to match his and moved in close. He didn’t smile, there wasn’t the time, but he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand in gratitude, in relief.

They came to a stop just before the locking ring, the crowd pushing past them indifferently. A Mirialan bumped Jyn’s shoulder, knocking her closer to him as the green-skinned man shoved past without glancing back. Her scowl deepened and she pressed against Cassian’s side, but her hand stayed steady in his.

An engine rumbled somewhere behind and above him, the distant thunder of a TIE hunting through the skies. A rumble of warning that the storm was headed their way. Faintly, just over the noise of the crowd, he thought he heard a mechanized voice start droning over a loudspeaker, although the words were too obscured to pick out.

He checked the chrono. One minute.

Jyn leaned her head against his shoulder. It was a small motion, more a press of her temple to his arm. To the casual observer, she probably just looked like a bored Human waiting for something trivial to happen, or like a tired local leaning on her spouse. The warmth of her body seeped into his arm and his side, warmest where her breath cascaded down his arm. Cassian didn’t close his eyes again, but he took a long, slow breath. Let the warmth sweep over him.

The red lights in the ground began to flash. An alarm began to blare, a klaxon that sounded in several registers, even those beyond Human hearing. The crowd stopped flowing up and down the street, a gap several feet wide forming around the flashing red lights. Jyn straightened, and Cassian ran his thumb briefly over the back of her hand again. _Wait for it._

With a low grinding screech, the locking ring began to lift slowly from the ground.

Cassian leapt forward, felt Jyn moving at the same time, step matched to step as they jumped the rising ring before it was more than a handspan from the ground. Gasps and shouts from either side of the ring rose in horrified chorus, but he ignored them, ignored the buzz of a nearby Stormtrooper yelling at them to halt and identify, and ran. A moment later, the distinct rumble of the Rings turning past one another was drowned out by the sudden boom of a loudspeaker.

**ALERT! A THREAT TO SECURITY HAS BEEN REPORTED. ALL CITIZENS REMAIN CALM AND SHELTER IN PLACE. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PEACEKEEPING ACTIVITIES. ALERT!**

“Oh great,” a pale purple Sephi groaned next to Cassian, nearly hitting him with her elbow as she swept her arm expressively through the air. “ _Another_ security drill. Golly gee, it’s like rebels are just prancing through the streets these days.” She threw a hand across her forehead dramatically and shook her other fist up at the Osk District overhead. “Alas!” she exclaimed in an exaggerated tone, “We are overrun! If only the Glorious Empire would save us from the rebel menace!”

Jyn suddenly seemed overcome with a coughing fit, her fist curled in front of her mouth as she bent her head, her shoulders shaking. Cassian shot her a look, concerned that perhaps she was turning hysterical – or was there a head injury? Had she been struck across the head? – but Jyn merely shrugged at him when she caught his eye. There was a dangerous edge to her smile, but the expression was subdued enough that no one else would notice it before she wiped it off her face.

“Hush, child,” an older Human woman shook her head at the Sephi and pulled her scarf close around her face. “This is no time for those kinds of jokes. Just go inside somewhere and have your scandocs ready.”

Most of the crowd seemed to have the same idea, shuffling in slow, tense waves into shops and restaurants. Cassian caught sight of several sentients in hooded jackets slinking into the dark spaces under one of the giant bridges that arched over the Rings towards the Central Shaft, vanishing into the shadows. Possible hiding spot, he noted, although the people already hiding there might object to the intrusion.

Next to him, Jyn pulled her scarf up over her head in mimic of the old woman. It was a more awkward gesture than usual, since she only had one hand free. She couldn’t quite get it folded smoothly; a handful of stars swirled along her cheek despite her best efforts to tuck them away and leave only the unremarkable dark blue cloth visible. Cassian side-stepped a grumbling Twi’lek and used the excuse to move in close, pinch the fabric between two fingers and twist the stars out of sight. Jyn smiled at him again, this time a faint sweet curve of her lips that faded immediately back into wary watchfulness at the crowd around them.

Cassian moved ahead, using his greater height to break a small path for her, watching the crowd in front of them. He felt her hand twist slightly in his as she turned to look back over her shoulder, watching the crowd behind. A Gree herded their offspring in a squeaking pack in front of them, forcing him to move around; a massive Wookiee snarled as she plowed through the crowd and nearly knocked into him before he dodged aside. Jyn’s hand tugged him left and he obeyed her direction without looking, hearing the jabber of overexcited Rishii as a flock of them fluttered and danced by behind him where they had been a moment before. Jyn growled something that sounded like one of the Barabel languages, and someone growled back in the same tongue. She didn’t pull back on his hand, or let go, so Cassian ignored it and pushed on, gritting his teeth as various sentients jostled and banged into him.

The traffic patterns were more chaotic now, harder to predict as the people in the street noticed the oncoming storm of Imperial control marching relentlessly from the Inner Rings towards them. No alarms in this part of the Ring yet, but his back felt tight with the sensation of heavy gauntlets stretching out towards him, ready to drag him back and down into the grey sterility of an Imperial prison. An Imperial torture room. An Imperial death. The ground seemed to throb under his feet, vibrating in time to the beat of a thousand white boots, march, march, marching towards the rebel spies. The rumbling of engines grew louder, and seemed now to be coming from multiple angles. A dark shape slid along the Resh skyline out of the corner of his eye, darting behind a tall building before he could get a good view of it. Not that he needed one. He knew what a TIE fighter on a hunting pass looked like.

**ALERT!**

The nearest speaker crackled to life next to them, a small blue holofeed blooming next to it. The crowd noise dropped abruptly, people pausing conversations and vendor sales to turn and look up at the floating blue image. Two blueish Stormtroopers marched into view over the speaker, rifles up, steps locked in sync. Cassian’s breath caught, but he kept moving. Mild expression of interest on his face as he watched the holofeed, just another citizen wondering what was going on, but his feet kept moving, and his hand stayed tight around Jyn’s.

**ALERT! A THREAT TO SECURITY HAS BEEN REPORTED.**

A blurry image of a small Human-shaped sentient darted into the holofeed’s view, one arm lashing out and striking the first blue Stormtrooper across the helmet with a thin dark object, sending his head spinning painfully to the side. The second ‘trooper raised his rifle, but before he could aim it at anything, the probably-a-Human turned and fired, the flash of her blaster bolt whiting out the holoimage briefly. The holofeed image fuzzed and then resolved into a hallway with two dead Stormtroopers and the poorly rendered blur of motion in the corner that could only just barely be recognized as a person disappearing off camera. The whole thing took roughly two seconds, and then the image wavered and started the sequence over again. Cassian squeezed Jyn’s hand. “Impressive,” he said out loud, and heard a low laugh that turned into a fake cough behind his back before she cut it off.

**ALL CHECKPOINTS ARE NOW INITIATING LOCKDOWN. ALL CITIZENS REMAIN CALM AND SHELTER IN PLACE. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PEACEKEEPING ACTIVITIES. ALERT!**

A few meters ahead of them, the crossing between the Silver Ring and the Copper Ring began to flash red, but most of the crowd had already stopped to watch the holofeed looping overhead. So hardly any of them seemed to notice the two Humans striding across the locking ring in spite of the warning klaxons. Even the singular Stormtrooper stationed at the crosspoint had his back to them, his fingers tapping the side of his helmet as he watched two of his fellow ‘troopers fall to a being who seemed half their size. Cassian kept his face calm and his steps even, and kept moving. Just a little further.

The Copper Ring was already clearing out even before the alarms started screaming for the people to remain calm. A learned behavior, Cassian thought a touch bitterly; these people already knew what increased TIE patrols and distant alarms meant – pain for anyone caught in the path. It would be even worse in the Steel Ring, most of the population vanishing from sight the moment anything that looked remotely like Imperial trouble looked in their direction. If he and Jyn didn’t get to the port in time, there would be no shelter for them in the Steel Ring, no place to hide save perhaps under the great bridges.

They had to get to the port on time. Cassian picked up his speed a little, now walking a little too fast to be casual, but hopefully anyone watching would think he was merely trying to clear the streets as well, trying to get out of the path of the storm. Jyn’s steps quickened simultaneously, probably coming to the same conclusion.

He fought to keep himself from jumping in surprise when a speaker squealed with static and began to shout just over his head.

**ALERT! DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PEACEKEEPING ACTIVITIES. ALERT!**

The Copper Ring speakers were set closer together than in the Gold or Silver Rings, which made the announcement echo and buzz unpleasantly in Cassian’s head as they snapped alive. He grit his teeth and stretched his step out just a little bit more. The street was already clear enough that it looked odd for Jyn to walk behind him, so she appeared at his side again, her stride matching his despite their difference in height. Cassian didn’t look down at her, didn’t let his expression shift from anything other than vaguely irritated citizen annoyed at the interruption to his day. He focused on the streets around them, watching for ‘trooper patrols. They weren’t far from the port where their ship waited, just one more crossing and then a few blocks through the Steel Ring. Overhead, the thunder rumbled louder, louder, until at last it split the sky as a TIE screamed down the street, rattling the catwalks and sending the copper banners flapping wildly in it’s churning wake. Jyn’s nails dug into his hand for a moment, then relaxed. He ran his thumb over hers one more time, _it’s alright, we’re alright, just keep moving_ , and didn’t bother to glance up. They walked closer to the side of the street as the crowds began to thin even more, keeping below the banners.

“ _De nar ere’bus haalas,”_ Jyn cursed under her breath, and a moment later Cassian saw why. The crossing between the Copper and Steel Rings was already active, red lights flashing, klaxon bellow just becoming audible over the fading thunder of the TIE fighter, and the locking ring already several meters in the air. They had maybe three seconds before the Rings began to turn, and they were spun away from Lumina Port.

“Go,” he said, and they were running, witnesses be damned, security cameras be damned, if they didn’t get to the port now they were dead anyway. Cassian gripped Jyn’s hand tight and he ran.

The locking ring left a gap roughly the width of Cassian’s arm in the street, lined with flashing red lights. It was monumentally dangerous to jump across it.

Jyn launched herself over it half a second before he did, and Cassian felt the ground moving under his foot just as he pushed off from it. His heart stuttered in his chest as the tall black building on his right was suddenly closer, a lot closer, surging towards him as the ground beneath his airborne feet began to rumble and shift, and then he slammed into the street a mere two steps from the front door of a battered pawn shop. Jyn landed next to him, skidding as her feet hit the ground at a slightly off angle, her momentum skewed by the difference between her forward trajectory and the Ring’s sideways motion. Cassian pulled her upright as best he could, but they were both already scrambling forward.

“What the fuck is wrong with you crazy idiots?!” someone shouted at them, but Cassian didn’t look back to see who it was, and Jyn laughed out loud this time, not even bothering to pretend to cough. A swirl of giddy amusement and exasperation temporarily drowned out the adrenaline-fueled terror in his chest – they were fleeing the Imperial army in an occupied system through a constantly-shifting cityscape, and she was _laughing_.

Force help him, he loved her.

“Almost,” Jyn grinned when she saw him looking at her. “Almost.”

And she was right; Cassian’s boots scraped on the rough gravel of the Steel Ring’s shoddy roads as they burst around the last corner and the gates of Lumina Port came into view.

The closed gates of Lumina Port.

Another rumble of thunder, more dark angular shapes darting through the sky in the corners of his vision, hidden by shifting buildings and the hard edges of Osk District looming above. Cassian didn’t bother cursing the gates, although he appreciated the profane string of creative insults that Jyn spat at them. He had prepared for this possibility, at least, and he took comfort from the fact that several ships were still rising and falling from the port on the other side of the gates. The Imperials had not yet locked down all traffic to the city, which meant they had at least a little more time. A shipping port of this size would be hard to shut down entirely, especially when so much of it was military-run, which would refuse shutdown without a dozen different high-ranking officers signing off on it directly.

They still had time.

Cassian rounded the corner of the port wall and slipped into the extremely narrow alley that ran along it’s south side. It was so thin that Jyn couldn’t walk beside him anymore, once again lagging behind as he moved. “Maintenance hatch,” he panted to Jyn a few steps into the alley, turning sideways so he could pull her in front of him.

She dropped his hand and squeezed past, popping open the access panel next to the square hatch built almost seamlessly into the black wall of the port. This wall wasn’t as well maintained as the buildings in the inner Rings; a spiderweb of cracks ran along it, with the occasional pinkish weed poking through. Cassian caught a whiff of ammonia and grimaced – the building against their back was apparently home to some of the poorer non-Humans who lived in the edges of Kafrene, the ones who needed ammonia atmospheres to live. If the atmo leak was strong enough for him to smell the ammonia, even outside, it meant that Jyn would have to be careful slicing through the maintenance panel. Ammonia decayed into hydrogen, and these buildings had been here a long time, building up clouds of the stuff around them. If Jyn accidentally created even a small spark, who knew how big the fireball could be?

**ALL CHECKPOINTS ARE NOW INITIATING LOCKDOWN.**

“ _Your genitals to incinerate in the fires of retribution!”_ Jyn swore in Huttese as the speakers around the corner, the ones embedded above the port’s gates, began to broadcast the message that had hounded them through the city.

Cassian pressed his hand against her back. “ _Your bones to be filled with acid slugs_ ,” he replied mildly in the same language, and tried not to feel too pleased with himself when she barked another short laugh and let her shoulders relax under his hand. While he had the opportunity, Cassian tugged her scarf down and checked the back of her head for any bumps or blood. Just in case.

“Not concussed,” Jyn grunted at him as she felt his fingers comb methodically over the back of her skull. “Just…” she sighed, though her hands never stopped moving over the panel and she didn’t look back at him. “It’s been a _week_ , okay?”

Well, that was true enough.

**ALERT! ALL CITIZENS REMAIN CALM AND SHELTER IN PLACE. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH PEACEKEEPING ACTIVITIES.**

Cassian ran his fingers down the base of her neck one more time, just to be sure, and then tugged her scarf back up over her head neatly. Code shifted down the small screen too fast for him to read over her shoulder, so he didn’t bother. Instead, he pulled her blaster from her holster and kept his eyes on the far end of the alley, one hand resting on her back, the other pointing the weapon at the narrow opening.

A faint beep from the panel, and the hatch clicked. “Just like Maddel said,” Jyn told him grimly, wedging her fingers into the crack of the hatch and heaving it open. “They make them the same all over the kriffing galaxy. Every damn port.”

“Imperials don’t have much imagination,” Cassian murmured, and followed her inside. He turned to close the hatch behind him, fumbling a little because he was still holding the blaster in that hand. He worked it closed after a moment, and listened to it seal with another click. He kept his other hand on Jyn’s back, which was how he felt her go rigid as the dark closed in around them.

Ah. Right.

The maintenance space in the port’s wall wasn’t quite as cramped as the hellishly small tunnel in Jedha’s port, nor was it lit with a faint red emergency light. But Cassian could feel the light press of metal walls on either side of his body, and the ceiling was low enough that he had to bow his head awkwardly. He felt down Jyn’s hip until he found her holster, and slipped the blaster back into place. The small pressure at her side seemed to jolt her back to herself, and Jyn shivered. “Sorry,” she grated, and she took a hesitant step forward, arms outstretched to feel for the path.

“Wait.” Both hands free now, Cassian wrapped his arms around her from behind and pressed his mouth to her shoulder. He didn’t speak, but he made sure she felt him against her back, felt him pulling her in close. Then he shifted back again, before she had to acknowledge the comfort for what it was, before she had to admit to anything. He ran his hand down her arm until he found her clenched fist. She uncurled her fingers immediately at his touch, subtly attempting to wipe her clammy palm against her trousers before he could feel it. Cassian gave no sign he noticed, slipping the little emergency flashlight from his pocket into her hand.  It was tiny, a small square of metal that he normally clipped to the front of his coat, but it gave just enough light that she could locate the small maintenance tunnel burrowing through the port wall.

“Right,” Jyn said, the little light bobbing along the pipe-encrusted wall. “Let’s go.” And she stomped purposefully down the path. He couldn’t see her, only the faint outline of her shoulder and jaw just past the flashlight, but he could tell her head was high as she walked, ignoring the press of cold walls and darkness around her.

Cassian followed the light.

The dark space between walls felt cut off, disconnected from the noise and chaos of the city outside, wholly separate from the sallow light of Kafrene’s streets, the crushing walls of the buildings, the incoherent riot of graffiti. They moved through colorless darkness and heard only the shuffle of their own feet, the soft harmony of their breathing. The tiny flashlight caught on various metal surfaces, throwing off tiny glints of light in the void around them, and every now and again he thought he glimpsed the stars shimmering around Jyn’s throat. Cassian’s hands itched to reach out again, his body shivered where her warmth had been a moment ago. He kept his hands to himself and told his body to deal with it. If they made it off Kafrene, there would be time. He would _make_ the time.

“Here,” Jyn’s voice broke through the soft silence of their private infinity, and then another click as she opened an unlocked hatch and yellowish light flooded in.

The faint sounds of klaxons overlaid the rise and fall of engines whining, small ships launching and landing all around them in orderly patterns. The blaring alert message was muted inside the port, at least, covered over by roaring engines and the more immediately urgent traffic control messages that Lumina Tower sent out over the broadcast system. Cassian squinted against the light and almost smiled with relief to note that this maintenance hatch opened into the port only a few landing pads down the line from the _Malta_. They were almost there.

“But my manifest was already approved!” A nearby nasal voice cut through the noise of the port, and Cassian glanced aside to see a Human in pilot’s coveralls holding a clipboard and glaring at a pair of Stormtroopers in front of a well-maintained light freighter. “See? I was assigned launch time over an hour ago!”

“Please return to your ship and await further instruction,” one of the Stormtroopers buzzed, and while the armor obscured both his voice and body language, his indifference to the pilot was clear. “Schedules are being reconfigured in accordance with orders. Your ship may not depart without a security inspection.”

“I already _had_ my security inspection this morning! Damn it, I have a schedule to keep!” The Human slapped the clipboard with one hand angrily, as if this mattered to Stormtroopers. His face turned red as he glowered at the blank white helmets. “I am a businessman, I have _commitments!”_

“Lockdown is initiated in this Ring,” the second ‘trooper responded, obviously not for the first time. “There are no exceptions.”

“What about _those_ exceptions?” The pilot flung out an arm just as Cassian and Jyn moved past, probably pointing at the ships that still launched and landed behind them, but the Stormtroopers turned instead to look at the people. At Cassian.

The moment seemed to slow, the air in his lungs hardening into ice as his mind raced. Shoulders back, face calm. Step forward, between those empty glass eyes and Jyn’s scruffy, dirt-smeared, possibly bloody clothes. He wore the business suit, he carried an emergency ident chip in his back pocket. He knew this dance better than any other.

“Halt and identify,” the first Stormtrooper buzzed, stepping away from the irate pilot, who threw his arms up in impotent fury at being so summarily dismissed.

Agent Clarke was too risky, there had been time for Security Station Qusongite to find the dead body in the basement, to review the footage of him hot-wiring the blast doors as he escaped. Harrod Tyree was definitely burned. Saya was a name Jyn had simply invented from the air for Tivik’s knowledge only, and since he didn’t know where Tivik was, even that identity was probably compromised at this point. Cassian hadn’t torched his way through this many idents in one mission for a long while. But it did happen from time to time, and Cassian Andor had long ago learned to keep more than one contingency in his pocket.

“Kenneth Reddout,” Cassian said politely, smiling with the vague puzzled politeness of someone being hailed as a friend by a face he doesn’t recognize. “I’m sorry, I’ve been in a meeting all morning, is there some kind of trouble going on?” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a disk, handing it to the Stormtrooper without hesitation. Just for good measure, he ran a hand up through his gelled hair, ensuring that it was still neatly set. The gesture also gave him a chance to glance to the side, as if checking his reflection in the nearby reflective surface of the ‘trooper checkpoint booth. To his intense relief, he found the space next to him empty, and the Stormtrooper did not lean around to call out to anyone else. Jyn had slipped back into the shadows unnoticed.

“The city is entering lockdown procedures,” the Stormtrooper flicked the switch on the side of the disk, and a slightly-altered version of Cassian’s head popped into view over his gauntlet. Cassian kept the vague polite smile on his face, settled his weight back on one foot like a man fully prepared to lounge about chatting all day. He didn’t quite shove his hands into his pockets, that would be suicidal if these ‘troopers were uptight about the lockdown and looking to be heroes, but he did hook his thumbs casually into his belt loops and tilt his head thoughtfully.

“Lockdown, huh? Something interesting happen? A bombing or something?” Cassian let his voice get just a touch too eager, a bored mid-level businessman looking for some juicy gossip.

The ‘trooper examined his scandoc data for a moment, logged Kenneth Reddout in the system (it didn’t matter, the image was altered to fool facial recognition software, and Reddout didn’t exist anywhere but on that disk in the ‘trooper’s hand). “No, sir. It’s probably just a routine test of the security network. Please return to your ship and await security inspection.”

Cassian glanced over at the other ‘trooper staring blankly at the ranting pilot, who was getting angrier and angrier with every ship that launched over his. Clearly, the Stormtrooper talking to Cassian considered Reddout to be a step up from the other Human. No angry shouting, anyway. Good, he could use the other man as a foil, a way to build rapport and possibly get a little extra information. “Doesn’t look like everyone’s so happy about it, eh?” he nodded at the angry pilot.

The Stormtrooper didn’t sigh, but his helmet did turn to glance aside before turning back to hand Cassian the scandoc disk. “No, sir,” the mechanized voice was stiffer than ever. “The landing order was... _adjusted_ to accommodate lockdown. Only previously inspected ships with priority clearance may depart until second-wave confirmation comes from Security headquarters.”

 _Translation: the wealthier patrons of this dock are allowed to depart because they bribed some official who hasn’t been overridden by a higher official yet._ Cassian kept the distaste off his face, however, and let his smile turn a touch conspiratorial. “And let me guess - suddenly everyone in the port is rushing to tell you how their cargo is definitely a priority.”

This time the filter in the Stormtrooper’s helmet was not quite good enough to hide the weary resignation in the voice coming from inside it. “You guessed it.”

The Human instinct for empathy was incredibly strong, Cassian had found over his years as a soldier in an underground war. For a brief moment, he almost felt sorry for the Stormtrooper.

However, his years as a soldier in an underground war had also taught him how to recognize and disable that instinctive reaction in himself, and more importantly, how to exploit it in others. “Well, I’m in no hurry,” he shrugged and then winked at the Stormtrooper (later, when they were safe, Jyn would probably poke fun at him about that; he never quite learned the knack for winking and she never failed to find it funny). “Tell you what, this will be a nice excuse to take a few hours off. Maybe scrounge up some snacks.”

It worked. The Stormtrooper’s body stayed rigid inside the armor, but the rifle dropped a few degrees lower in his grip, relaxed from the semi-offensive angle they usually carried their weapons. “There’s a food dispenser kiosk in the main lobby of port admin. Look out for Admin Lita Hovius. If she likes you, she’ll show you where the caf is kept, too.”

Cassian marked the name ‘Lita Hovius’ down and saluted the ‘trooper lazily with his scandoc disk before tucking it back into his pocket carelessly. “You are a lifesaver, soldier,” he said cheerfully.

“Have a good day, sir” the ‘trooper stepped to the side and allowed Cassian to saunter past. When Cassian glanced back, he saw both ‘troopers now standing in front of the still-ranting pilot – although in Cassian’s experience, pissing off Stormtroopers during a security alert was a fast way to find oneself in a holding cell. If that idiot pilot didn’t shut his mouth and go wait inside his ship like a good little citizen of the Empire, he would regret it soon enough.

The angry pilot wasn’t the only one irritated by the partial lockdown, however. As Cassian walked through the main lane, careful to appear relaxed even as he searched the shadows from the corners of his eyes, he noted more and more pilots, mechanics, general crewmen, and other people in varying levels of business attire appearing on the tarmac, forming angry little groups and complaining to one another in the manner of stranded travelers everywhere. Cassian avoided as many as he could, but one larger group had already formed across the wide path between the two rows of landing pads, a few meters away from the _Malta_. Most of the group seemed to be Human, but at least a solid quarter of it was not, and they all wore coveralls or casual gear that marked them as independent contractors and haulers. No one wealthy enough to pay the ‘priority clearance’ bribe, most likely. He could hear the angry muttering as he neared, caught phrases like _bucket head idiots just ignored my chip_ and _hauling here for twenty cycles_ , _can’t believe they would just_ -  and worse still, worst of all –

“Someone ought to do something about it,” a heavy-set Human declared loudly from somewhere near the center of the group, just as Cassian reached the edge of it. He grimaced; that, he thought wearily, was stupid.

“Shite,” Jyn muttered from his elbow, appearing in the crowd next to him like a wraith. “Moron.”

He nodded and shouldered his way past the workers as fast as he could without actually knocking in to them. The Malta was right there, if they could just get through before the Stormtroopers heard the idiot shouting rebellious comments to a group of non-Humans, they would be free. Despite his best efforts, though, the small crowd was just too tightly packed in the narrow pathway. He couldn’t help but bump one worker’s shoulder with his own, and the Rodian whipped around with a glower. Cassian’s gut sank – the business suit was now working against him as the angry worker looked him over. “ _Watch it,”_ the worker snapped, immediately drawing the attention of the rest.

“Sorry,” Cassian held up his hands apologetically, hunched his shoulders down, dropped his eyes. Non threatening, humble. “Just trying to get to my ship, sorry.”

It was the wrong thing to say, though, he knew it the moment it came out of his mouth, because the angry murmuring was now directed at him. The Rodian’s antennae stood straight up in agitation, their blue skin pale around the liquid dark eyes from stress.

_“Oh, got to get to your ship, huh? Got to take off on time, Mister Nice Suit, too important to get shunted off to the side with the rest of us dirty folk, huh?”_

Cassian thought fast – he could play an assistant, awkward but likable, struggling through his first day, or maybe just a port admin hoping to offer free caf to the disgruntled customers, or maybe –

“Hey,” Jyn said flatly from his side. “Fuck off.”

The workers’ attention snapped to Jyn, and then to Jyn’s very large, serrated vibroblade that she held casually in front of her.  The loud-mouthed Human leader had drawn closer, and he chose this moment to speak again. “Look, lady, we’re just – “

“This gathering is unauthorized and illegal during lockdown measures,” the buzzing mechanical voice came from behind Cassian’s shoulder, and he couldn’t tell if it was the same one as before or not. If it was the same ‘trooper, it made no difference. “You will all be detained and brought to the port holding cells for questioning.”

A chorus of protests rose and died instantly as three more ‘troopers appeared from all directions.

At his side, Jyn’s knife vanished into her pocket, but she didn’t withdraw her hand. She had her chin tucked down and her scarf pulled up, but he could see the calculations in her eyes as she watched the ‘troopers closing in around them. It was possible, he mused, that she could take all four of them. It was possible the angry workers would even help her. Hells, it was even possible that they might get to the _Malta_ and launch from the port before reinforcements arrived.

Overhead, against the uneven black edges of the upside-down city in the sky, Cassian could see clean white shapes floating serenely into view, the giant Star Destroyers rendered tiny and harmless looking at this distance. A distance that would be utterly meaningless to Destroyer targeting computers and long-range missile weapons.

It was not possible, no matter how good a pilot he might be, for their little Nesst freighter to outrun a fleet of Star Destroyers running city-wide lockdown procedures.

Cassian dropped his eyes from the Star Destroyers to Jyn’s tense face again, an odd sort of acceptance washing over him. He had no more contingencies. He had no more back ups. He had nothing to say and nowhere to run. Perhaps that would change, perhaps, or maybe this was it and they were done. Whatever was about to happen, Cassian could do nothing but watch it play out, so he watched Jyn.

“We were just talking,” the loud-mouthed Human yelled from nearby, cut off by the sound of something heavy striking something soft. Jyn’s mouth tightened, her eyes narrowed, and the right hand she had buried in her pocket (no doubt wrapped around the hilt of that big vibroblade) flexed inside her jacket. She would stab the first one, he decided. In the throat, probably, although there was a chance she would go for the soft spot in the armpit of the white chestplate instead.

“Move along,” the nearest ‘trooper ordered the workers just to Cassian’s left. Jyn’s stance widened slightly, not moving, not yet openly resisting. She’d probably shoot the second one, so he would have to duck to ensure a clear shot for her.

“Sergeant, separate those two from the crowd,” a sharp voice ordered from behind him. Jyn’s eyes widened, her lips parting in momentary shock before she wiped the expression from her face entirely.

Cassian blinked. Wait. He knew that voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” the nearest Stormtrooper saluted and marched over to Cassian, pointing a rifle directly into his face. “You there. Step aside.”

“That female, too,” Officer La Kai Yunas stepped into view behind the ‘trooper, her grey Security Guard uniform neatly pressed, her face severe. She clasped her hands behind her back and stared at Cassian with a mostly indifferent expression. He could see the lines of strain around her eyes, however, and the tension in her jaw. The ‘trooper, fortunately, just saw a superior officer giving an order, and jerked his rifle in La Kai’s direction.

“Move,” the Stormtrooper ordered, the dark void of his rifle barrel only a few centimeters from Cassian's eye.

At his side, Jyn slumped down, her hands hanging empty at her sides, her scowl now petulant and bored. The ‘trooper gestured again, and Cassian moved towards the waiting Security Guard with what he hoped was a convincingly reluctant step, Jyn trailing just behind his shoulder.

“Very good, Sergeant,” Yunas nodded to the ‘trooper dismissively.

“Yes, ma’am.” The ‘trooper turned back to the crowd, but Yunas cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow when he looked back.

“Transferal of custody, please, Sergeant. We are in lockdown procedures.”

Cassian mentally made a note – wherever the Alliance sent La Kai Yunas after this, they needed to evaluate her for possible recruitment into Intelligence.

The Stormtrooper straightened and brought his rifle sharply back into correct carrying position. “Yes, ma’am! These persons of interest are in your custody, ma’am.”

“I accept custody of these persons of interest,” she said coolly. “Now you may see to the rest, Sergeant.”

The ‘trooper saluted crisply, and Yunas swept them both with an unreadable expression. “This way, please,” she turned and walked directly to the _Malta_.

“Back entrance,” Cassian muttered, and to her credit, Yunas didn’t falter, she simply changed course and led them around the ship to the back, where the ‘troopers herding the angry workers couldn’t see them boarding. At the very least, it would confuse their reports later, if anyone asked where the Security Guard and her two ‘persons of interest’ had gone.

The small back entrance ramp opened slowly, and Cassian caught sight of three shapes huddled together in the small galley between cabins. The adult and one of the children had vivid green hair.

“Mama!” The small girl ran forward, smacking hard into Yunas’ legs. “Mama, it’s a _ship!_ Are we going onna ride? On the ship? I got out of school and Mommy said it was a ship!”

Yunas scooped up the child and hugged her tight as Cassian and Jyn hustled into the Malta and he closed the door behind them. “Hi, Kiri,” Yunas swallowed, her cold, professional manner vanishing into barely contained nerves as she watched Jyn sidle past her and head directly to the cockpit. “We’re definitely on a ship.”

Cassian ensured all external hatches were sealed, and scanned the family standing before him. Diona Riggers watched him like a hawk watching a sheecas-snake The little boy had a small green backpack decorated with animated characters over his bony shoulder. He clutched the strap with one hand and held his mother’s fingers tight with the other as his eyes darted between all the adults, trying to understand this radical shift in his world.  

Cassian had a few questions himself. “How?”

“Your friend came to our door,” Diona told him, her voice brittle, her eyes bright. “He was hurt, upset. Said it was time to go.” She pointed at a few small suitcases sitting neatly in a stack by the bulkhead. The smallest had pink and green flower stickers all over it. “We were ready, but he was…” she stopped, wrinkled her nose.

“Stinky,” the little girl piped up. Yunas shushed her, but she giggled, and rubbed her nose. “Sweaty stinky!”

“He had a datadrive,” Yunas shifted her daughter in her arms to dig in her pocket, though she was obviously reluctant to put the child down entirely. “Made a copy on our console, then scrubbed the whole console. He said,” her voice wavered slightly, as if she were suddenly on unstable ground and only just starting to realize it, “he said that was part of the deal.”

“He needed a copy for his…branch of the organization,” Cassian also tread cautiously, because there was still a great deal he could not, would not tell this Human woman in a sharp grey uniform. “That part was definitely in our operational agenda.” _Putting the lot of you on my ship, on the other hand,_ he thought darkly, but didn’t bother to finish the thought. They were here. It was done.

Diona snorted, though the derision in her tone was undermined by the fear in her eyes. “Was his broken arm in the operational agenda?”

“Something had gone wrong,” Yunas’ own cool mask was cracking badly now, so tense that she was practically vibrating with it. In her arms, her daughter stilled, uncertainty beginning to seep in around her cheerful edges. The little boy’s lip trembled, young enough to be scared by his parent’s obvious fear, old enough to think he had to be brave anyway.

“We had some unexpected setbacks,” Cassian heard himself say, his voice empty. He had no comfort to offer them, not with lockdown probably reaching it’s final stages by now, not with no way off out of this port now that he had four stowaways on board his ship that he couldn’t possibly explain with any ident he had on hand. When the _Malta_ was boarded for security inspection, they would be discovered, and it all would fall apart. _Fucking Tivik_ , Cassian thought, though he could not muster the appropriate amount of rage for it. Fucking Tivik and his creative interpretation of “get them a ride offworld.”

“So exactly how wrong did this go, _Barris?_ ” Diona sank a world of bitterness into his false name. She looked down at her son, his small hand tight in her own, and when she lifted her eyes to his again, he could see the desperation-tinged terror stark on her face. “How badly is my family fucked because of you?”

“I’m in,” Jyn called from the cockpit, her voice calm. “We’re cleared for launch in two minutes. Just need someone on the comm.”

Cassian was going to kiss that woman senseless.

For the moment, however, he merely gestured to the little table in the galley. “Please have a seat,” he told Diona Riggers with as much calm reassurance as he could muster. “Or at least have the younglings sit. We don’t have safety harnesses in their size here.”

The two women stared at him with stunned expressions, but the little girl’s face split into a wide, incredulous grin, her green braids bouncing as she wiggled in her parent’s arms. “Are we going onna _ride?_ ”

“I’m in the launch queue,” Jyn told him as he pushed into the cockpit and took his seat next to her, initiating engine spool up. “Sliced the registry, copied over the number of someone in the queue, latched it to our ship and landing pad. Approval code from Port Administrator Lita Hovius.”

Cassian nodded, flipping the hyperdrive to warm up sequence and reaching up for his headset. “So who are we impersonating?”

“Light Freighter _Aitmaad._ ”

“A Mustafarian ship?”

She flashed him a quick smirk. “Good ear. _Aitmaad_ is a Mustafar word for,” she paused, and her smirk deepened, “ ‘one who is trusted’.”

Cassian felt that giddy mix of amusement and exasperation rising in his chest again. “Are they in the Techno Union?”

“How else could they afford the fee for priority launch during lockdown?”

“Wonderful,” Cassian set his finger over the comm switch and shook his head. “Cover our tracks well. Intel has been trying to court the Techno Union for ship parts for over three months. If Raf finds out we screwed that up for him, he might kill us himself.”

“You,” Jyn corrected, and stared blandly at his arched eyebrow. “If he finds out _you_ screwed that up for him. You’re the ranking officer, _Captain_.”

Cassian opened his mouth to protest, but before he could get a word out, Jyn reached over and pushed his finger down on the comm switch. The out-going comm light blinked on, and a familiar hiss of static filtered through Cassian’s headset. “Lumina Tower, _Aitmaad_ , prepped for launch,” Cassian said instead, dropping his voice low and snarling the words slightly in the back of his throat. It didn’t perfectly mimic the rough accent used by standard Mustafarian translators, but over the crackling comm it would pass.

A pause, and then the comm crackled with the harassed tone of a space-traffic controller with too many conversations going on at once. “ _Aitmaad_ , Tower, your code is green, you are clear to launch from Pad one-nine-seven-seven.” In the background before the comm cut off, Cassian could hear the muffled sound of a dozen other voices speaking in the same clipped, busy tones of the controller, ordering, cajoling, commanding, possibly threatening a variety of other ships in this and several of the nearby ports. The thin black spire of Lumina Tower presided over seven different small ports in it’s vicinity, and all of them were trying desperately to contain the chaos of a mass shipping schedule during an Imperial lockdown.

A lockdown that he was mere seconds from escaping, if only he kept his head. “Copy, cleared to launch,” he told the controller in that same low voice, sounding as bored with this routine departure as he could. He flipped the comm off and pushed the throttle forward, and the _Malta_ rose slowly into the sky.

The port fell away below them, and Cassian flipped his comm from Lumina Tower to the wider-coverage frequencies. “Kafrene Control, _Aitmaad_ , departing on assigned vector.”

Jyn’s hands froze on her console next to him, and Cassian looked up to see her side of the viewscreen filling with an angular white shape.

“ _Aitmaad_ , Control, stand by,” a new, cultured voice said curtly into his ear. “All clearances are suspended. Remain on this frequency.”

Cassian licked his dry lips. “Copy, Control.” He flipped the switch off and looked at Jyn. She had pulled her scarf down sloppily, letting the river of embroidered stars swirl recklessly around her neck, spilling down one shoulder and along her arm.

Over the comm, the cultured voice spoke again, a slight reverb in the tone indicating that Control was now speaking on a broadcast to all ships. “All ships on Control frequency, lock down is in effect. Repeat, this system is in lockdown and further departure is unlawful. All ships, return to your point of departure, and prepare to release registration and identification to local authorities. Repeat, lock down is in effect. Further departure is unlawful. Return to your point of departure and prepare to release registration and identification to local authorities.”

Across the cockpit, Jyn turned from the Star Destroyer to him. Against the stark white backdrop of the Imperial Star Destroyer, her eyes flared with green fire, her jaw set, her chin high as she looked at him.

Behind them, he heard the boy’s voice, quiet and only shaking a little around the edges. “Mom? Are we going to die?”

Jyn reached across the space between them and slipped her hand into his again, slotting her fingers into the spaces between his.

“No, love,” Diona Riggers said tightly in the galley behind him. “We are going to live.” Her voice suddenly turned gentle and quiet, though her words carried as clear as the stars at Jyn’s throat. “We are finally going to live.”

Jyn nodded.

Cassian threw the hyperspace throttle forward.

“Freighter _Aitmaad_ , we detect high velocity emissions from your engines. Cut all thrust power and prepare to be – “

The stars thinned, stretched, and the ship went silent.

Behind them, a high, thin voice burst into an excited shout. “Mama! Mama, look! We’re going onna _ride!_ ”

Jyn’s eyes narrowed, her lips thinning in irritation and exasperation. “Fucking _Tivik_ ,” she growled.

Cassian leaned back in his chair, his fingers woven tight with hers, and laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Bismuth](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Wismut_Kristall_und_1cm3_Wuerfel.jpg/1280px-Wismut_Kristall_und_1cm3_Wuerfel.jpg) is a really cool rock. I with I had thought to use it more in the city before now. Ah well. Maybe someday we'll come back and dive a little deeper into the Bismuth Labyrinth.
> 
>  _De nar ere’bus haalas_ = a pseudo-Mandalorian phrase Jyn sometimes uses as a curse, basically means "by my rebellious guts!" (look, there isn't actually a full Mando'a translator anywhere, but there are a few words you can translate. I did what I could with that, and then extrapolated what the rest would probably sound like. It's a weird hobby)
> 
> Okay, so ammonia _is_ packed full of hydrogen, but it doesn't just fall apart into hydrogen clouds, I know. But let's just do a little sci-fi handwaving and consider that we don't actually know what technology would be used to pressurize and modulate the atmosphere into something appropriate for the ammonia-breathers. And then consider how it might leak/breakdown, and what effect that might have on any ammonia that broke out. The upshot is that the poorer parts of Kafrene are actually kind of flammable. And where better to put them then directly outside a port! Right?
> 
> Since it's been awhile: [Rodma Maddel](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rodma_Maddel) was one of the recruits in the last story, and I made her an Imperial building inspector, basically. She knew all about the layouts of just about every Imperial port there was, since they are largely built and operated the same. In canon, she was a member of Rebel Intelligence, personally recruited by Cassian Andor both into the Alliance and for the mission to Scarif.
> 
> You know, I could swear "sheecas-snake" was a Star Wars canon animal, but when I went back to check today, I could only find links to _my own stories referencing them_ , and now I'm not entirely sure if I really saw them somewhere or just invented them and forgot. Oops?
> 
>  _Aitmaad_ = Urdu for "trust." As far as I can tell. But in this story, it's Mustafarian for 'one who is trustworthy/trusted.' Because that makes me laugh.
> 
> The [Techno Union](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Techno_Union) is a canon-verse organization that has an interesting history with the Separatists during the Clone Wars, among other things. The agent Cassian and Jyn refer to, "Raf," is a minor OC from another story of mine that I couldn't resist pushing back into the world, just a tiny bit.
> 
> Almost done. Just need to clean up a few points.


	13. Addendum: Erso, J.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, aveyune23, for your patience and kindness as I struggled to finish this story, and for all your encouragement throughout. I hope it fills your prompt, and was at least worth the read. Additional thanks to all you lovely people who took the time to read, leave kudos, and comment. It matters, and I'm grateful you did.

**[2215 Galactic Standard Time, Lothal Year 3276]**

“The base is safe,” Jyn told La Kai, holding out the employee badges patiently as the woman stared. “Everyone there is a – everyone there works with us,” she corrected, because every time someone said the word ‘rebel,’ Riggers flinched and the little boy’s eyes went wide. La Kai Yunas looked a bit frayed around the edges too, especially since she had finally pulled off her grey uniform and replaced it with neat but cheaply made street clothes that would fall apart after a month of hard wear. Which, Jyn reminded herself, Yunas shouldn’t have to worry about. They weren’t going to chuck the family out on the streets. That would be a sure way to create four new loyal citizens to the Empire, prepared to spill their knowledge of rebel spies for any handout the Imps deigned to give.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the little girl zoom two tiny plastic grav-trains around in her chubby hands, making engine noises and occasionally crashing them into the hard table top with gleeful explosion sounds. Her mother, after several failed attempts, seemed to have given up trying to shush her. The kid grinned as she caught Jyn looking, and waved one of the train cars cheerfully. Her parents and older brother huddled in the galley with uncertain faces and white knuckles, but La Kai Kiri was, by all appearances, enjoying herself immensely.

No, they weren’t going to chuck the family into the street, but they had to play it careful, all the same. The adults were frightened, and that made them dangerous. The kids were just…young. She wouldn’t say that made them liabilities – Jyn Erso knew all too well how good a child could be at keeping their mouth shut in danger – but it was probably just a better idea in general not to put too much pressure on them. They had no training. So Jyn would just have to keep their parents calm and keep words like ‘rebel base’ or ‘alliance agents’ out of the fucking vernacular, right? Easy. She could do that. (The next time she saw Tivik, she was going to put her boot so far up his arse that he tasted the syth-leather.)

“What do we tell anyone who asks why we brought our kids to a private mining company’s supply base?” Yunas took the yellow badges and clipped one to her jacket, passing the other to her spouse.

Jyn shrugged. Did the woman not understand that _everyone works with us_ meant _they are all rebels, this whole base is a rebel base, the mining cover is a total lie_? Her estimation of Yunas dropped a notch. “They won’t ask.”

Riggers scowled at the badge in her hand, her purple eyes flicking to Yunas, then to Jyn. “Usca Mining? Never heard of them.” Her voice was sharp, almost waspish, her fear and fatigue scratching out of her in the form of irritation. Jyn understood what that was like, so she didn’t walk away and leave the woman to stew. These people weren’t like her and Cassian; they didn’t know what the war had already cost so many. Jyn glanced again at the kid playing with her cheap little toys, her brother rubbing the hem of his Mighty Force Rangers shirt restlessly between his fingers.

They hadn’t dared to know.

“Shell company, under a bunch of other shell companies,” she told Riggers, then hunted for something to say that would help, that would maybe take some of the fear from the boy’s dark eyes. It was no good, though; Cassian was the one who knew what to say, the one who could look at a total stranger and know exactly how to settle (or unsettle) them instantly. Jyn understood soldiers and saboteurs, thieves and thugs. A frightened mother and her small children were _not_ her arena.

But Cassian was in the cockpit running through the three dozen or so complicated authentications and passkey affirmations that would get them permission to land on the tiny rebel base disguised as a mining supply facility, and Jyn was the one who had to soothe the little family of former-Imperial civilians who were fleeing the brutal retaliation of their government.

In the back of her head, she wondered if this was how Saw felt, all those years ago when her parents had –

“Wait, Usca?” Yunas thankfully cut Jyn’s sudden uncomfortable line of thinking off, grabbing her badge and angling it up so she could get another look at it. “As in, Mount Usca? Isn’t that…isn’t that on Garos IV?”

Jyn hesitated, glancing towards the passageway that led to the cockpit, but Cassian didn’t appear to give her any clues to the right way of handling this. “Yeah,” she said at last, folding her arms and leaning back against the bulkhead, as composed and indifferent as she could manage. What was she supposed to do if Yunas guessed the location of their base? Would it even matter, if the woman was recruited into the Alliance? She had seen the way Cassian scanned Yunas appraisingly, his approval of her quick thinking and the way she pulled them out of that tense moment in Lumina Port. If he hadn’t marked the Security Guard (former guard, _former_ ) as a potential Intelligence agent, Jyn would eat her truncheon. Still, there was probably paperwork associated with a civilian figuring out their base, so it would be best if Yunas didn’t –

“Garos IV just had a civil war,” Yunas blurted. “We can’t be going there. Not after the Empire –“

She cut herself off abruptly, but it was too late. Riggers tilted her head, her green hair swinging down over her shoulder. “After the Empire what?”

Yunas shot a look at Jyn, as if hoping for intervention. Jyn stared back, blank. _No way, sister, that one’s on you._

“The Empire…took control of the situation,” Yunas said at last, reluctantly. “It was…they…the mines are now Imperial. They were before, technically, but now…well, they…”

 _They killed everyone involved in the civil war_ , Jyn finished mentally as the woman trailed off, her eyes falling on her son. _And set up a puppet government that keeps most of the population in the mines, working too hard to even think about rebelling_.

“Are we gonna be miners?” The boy - _Oba, let him have a name; shit, Jyn, let him be real and not just a problem to solve -_ Oba twisted the hem of his cartoon-character shirt harder around his small fingers, looking back and forth between his parents.

“No,” Jyn cut in, before anyone could panic about that particular load of banthashit. “You won’t stay here. Just a stop to get you registered.”

But it was the wrong thing to say, of course it was, because Yunas’ eyes turned hard, her shoulders tense. “ _Registered?”_

“Our organization has a specific branch devoted to the welfare of the people we help,” Cassian said from the passageway, stepping into the galley and watching them all with a calm expression. Jyn’s shoulders relaxed, the tension in her chest eased. Good, they must be through the security grid and headed in to Garos IV’s smaller moon, where the ‘mining supply’ base was tucked into the side of a mountain and largely unnoticed by the galaxy. Jyn pushed off the bulkhead and moved towards him, meaning to step past and sidle into the cockpit. She was not a great pilot, but she could get them onto a landing pad just fine, and Cassian could handle the talking. But he casually lifted his hand and braced it across the doorway, looking for all the world as if he merely needed something to lean on and wasn’t trapping her in here with the scared parents and their kids. Jyn glared at him, but he pretended not to see, simply blocking her path.

Fine. She leaned back against the bulkhead and eyed him, waiting.

“You’ll be given new names, new scandocs, and passage to a safe planet not currently threatened by the war,” Cassian went on without missing a beat. His voice was low and relaxed, just a friendly pilot explaining the routine landing protocols to his passengers, just a nice person chatting with his neighbors. It shouldn’t have worked, not with how keyed up the civilians were, not with the history between him and Riggers – but already Jyn could see the hard lines of both adults’ jaws softening, the pinched fear around Riggers’ mouth fading into a more normal expression. Oba didn’t let go of his shirt hem, but he unwound the material from around his fingers and let the skin go back to a more normal color. Only the little girl happily ignored Cassian, squeaking _pew-pew!_ under her breath as she chased one train toy with another.

“Where will they send us?” Riggers demanded, though the edge of her frightened anger was slightly less brittle now. “What will they do with us?”

“That will be your choice,” Cassian didn’t smile, but both his expression and his tone were gentle, almost conciliatory. “Family Services will have a number of possible jobs and housing situations available, and they will give you the top two or three that match your circumstances and needs. You’ll be able to pick.” His gaze caught Yunas, who lifted her chin, waiting. “There might be a few other offers, too,” he said, and Jyn congratulated herself on being fucking prescient; she _knew_ he’d want Yunas for Intel. He’d told her a little about his years as a recruiter in the Albarrio Sector; he had an eye for talent and a gift for figuring out what people really believed, what they _wanted_.

A gift, she thought a touch darkly, that had a few holes here and there.

 _Shite. Not the time_.

“We will be landing in ten minutes,” Cassian went on, letting Yunas’ gaze drop and sweeping them all with another mild, relaxed glance. “But before we transfer you to Family Services,” he said in that same friendly, pleasant voice, “there is something you need to know.”

His hand was braced against the doorframe just about level with Jyn’s eyes, so she could see how his fingers suddenly flexed against the metal, not quite clinging to it, but harder than he could possibly need to hold himself up. Her spine stiffened, but that was the only warning she got before Cassian –

Cassian dropped the mask.

He let out a long, slow breath, his shoulders sagging and his head bowing. The lines around his mouth and eyes were suddenly obvious and pronounced, as obvious as the exhaustion that threaded through his frame. Silence flooded the little galley, even Kiri pausing in her game to look around in confusion at the sudden stillness. The La Kai family focused in on Cassian, both adults frowning, both children watching. Jyn folded her arms tight across her chest and resisted the impulse to step forward and touch him, to slip under his raised arm and brace him up herself. She also bit back on the sudden surge of anger and…jealousy? Seriously, was she fucking _jealous_ that he was letting someone else see him without the mask?

Karking hells, she needed to get a grip. This whole last month had been one damn emotional hit after the other and she was just…

Jyn grit her teeth. Cassian was a smart man, and more importantly, a decent one. There was probably a good reason he was doing this, a very good reason he was making himself so fucking vulnerable in front of these strangers. Probably the same reason he had wanted her to stay and witness it. The same reason he had worked so hard to make sure this family could be saved in the first place. So she dug her nails into her palms under her crossed arms and waited to see what he did.

Cassian raised his head and looked Diona Riggers directly in her deep purple, non-Human eyes.

“I am sorry,” he said quietly. “What I have done to you is unkind, and unfair. I cannot undo it. I cannot repair it.” He turned his head to look at her son, then her daughter, then back to Riggers. “But I can promise you this,” he went on, his voice still tired and quiet, but now with a hint of steel underneath it that made Jyn’s heart quicken in her chest. “I can fight to change the world that drove us both to this place.” He straightened, the exhaustion gone now, the lines on his face faded to insignificance, the shadows in his eyes forged into something hard and uncompromising. “I _will_ ,” he said fiercely, and despite herself, Jyn shivered.

Silence settled around them again. Slowly, Riggers nodded her head.

“I’m hungry,” Kiri announced. “Mama, can I have a snack?”

“Kiri!” Oba hissed impatiently, no amount of adult drama able to overcome his exasperation with his sister. “We’re _talking._ ”

“Not talking, stupid!” She shot back indignantly. “Mama, I’m _hungry!_ ”

“Kiri, we don’t call each other stupid,” Yunas said firmly, as Riggers started to dig through a nearby bag, presumably for snacks.

Jyn pushed off the bulkhead and stalked towards Cassian, who had lapsed back into a friendly stranger, watching the La Kai family fuss and chatter. She didn’t slow as she approached, and he managed to drop his arm only a moment before she shoved her way past him, into the cockpit to grab the controls.

“Jyn,” he said softly as she passed, but behind her the little girl squealed in delight as her mother handed her something sweet, and Jyn was not ready. She just wasn’t.

“I’ll land,” she said shortly, and stomped into the cockpit. She sat down in the copilot’s seat, and then bounced right back to her feet. He was still in the passageway when she marched back out to him, still half-turned as he watched the family over his shoulder. Jyn grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, ignoring the slight stumble in his step as he instinctively moved to turn his back to the civilians and block their view of her face. “I’m not pissed at you,” she said flatly.

He blinked, and then his face softened into the almost-smile that hovered around the corners of his lips and brightened the shadows in his eyes. “Good to know,” he replied, dipping his chin and looking at her through his (unfairly long) eyelashes. It occurred to Jyn that he was really very close, and it probably had something to do with her fist in his shirt. He chose that moment to flick his gaze from her eyes to her lips, however, and Jyn suddenly found it difficult to assess the situation clearly. She hadn’t kissed him in several hours, not since Kafrene, and that suddenly seemed like a really shitty oversight. He was so close now, however, that she could fix that with just a slight tilt of her head, a little bit of a push up on her toes -

“You can have the green ones,” La Kai Kiri’s piping voice cut through her thoughts from over Cassian’s shoulder. “They’re icky.”

“Gee, thanks,” her brother shot back grouchily. “Hey! Stop putting those on my book! Kiri, I said -   _Mom!_ ”

She let go and turned around. Behind her, she heard a quiet chuckle that ran up her back as soft and sweet as a caress, but she didn’t look back. They needed to land this tub and get on with…with… _things_. Work. Whatever.

 

  
**[2239 Galactic Standard Time, Lothal Year 3276]**

Specialist Rhan Klar met them in the hangar, a short, round Human with a pleasant smile and an energetic wave. “Greetings, greetings!” they called as the La Kai family disembarked behind Cassian, trailing him like lost ducklings into the clatter of the hangar. Specialist Klar bounced forward, as energetic as a puppy on a playground, completely unfussed either at the short notice arrival of the civilians or the fact that it was almost the middle of the night cycle. Cassian waved back politely, set the suitcase he had been carrying for Riggers to the pavement, and then stepped to the side to wave the family forward.

“This is the Family Services agent who will work your case,” he told Yunas. “They’ll see that you’re cared for.”

“Thank you,” Yunas said automatically, and then her lips thinned into a line. Probably hadn’t decided how grateful she wanted to be, Jyn figured, dumping the rest of their luggage on the tarmac and rolling her shoulders. Well, he’d only saved her family from a lifetime of illness, drudgery and discrimination. Even if he didn’t do it in a particularly pleasant way. No need to thank him.

Next to her, La Kai Oba tugged awkwardly at his own little pack, glancing aside at her with hooded dark eyes and trying to stand up straighter. Jyn cleared her throat, and tapped him lightly on the shoulder with one fist. “Tighten the straps until they’re flat against your ribs,” she told him, pointing down at her own sides to demonstrate where the material should lie. “Roll your shoulders back and tilt your pelvis a little more forward.” She shifted, exaggerating the movements slightly so he could see what she meant. The boy moved to copy her stance, his weight better distributed across his lower back, the pack settling easier on his thin shoulders. “Good,” Jyn nodded in approval.

Oba smiled at her. It was a small thing, still wavering around the edges as he faced this big, scary new world his parents had brought him to, but there was a sweetness to it that reminded her of…something. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, and she wasn’t in the mood to try. Instead, she simply thumped the boy softly on the shoulder again, and turned to find her partner.

Who was watching her with hooded dark eyes over Riggers’ green head. The La Kai family crowded around the Family Services agent, who chattered and shook their hands and generally acted like a cheerful suburban local welcoming new neighbors. If it was a calculated move on Specialist Klar’s part, it was masterfully done, because all four already looked significantly calmer as they gathered their things and followed the agent away through the hangar. If Jyn looked really hard, she could probably pick out the relief in the adults’ body language, their eagerness to be away from the spies who had upended their lives. Riggers in particular kept her back firmly to Cassian, in a way that seemed incidental but could only be deliberate. As they left, only the little girl looked back, waving a toy train over her mother’s shoulder at Cassian and shouting over the hangar noise. “Bye bye, Mister Barry! Bye!”

Cassian released Jyn from his attention long enough to turn and hesitantly lift a hand in response. His face was painfully neutral, though, the kind of empty mask that meant he was working very hard to hide pain. Or, she assumed, regret. He hadn’t said anything, but Jyn had seen him wear that exact mask after he spoke with Diona Riggers for the first time, after he trailed the family through the shopping mall and then the festival. She’d also seen him wear it when his lips were stained faintly blue with cyanide, and his hands clenched tight around his rifle.

 _Fuego y fuerza! Let it go, idiot_. _Just let it go. Too much shit to do right now to bog down on that again._

By the time the family had vanished from view and Cassian turned around again, Jyn was better prepared to meet his eyes. She shrugged, tossed him the passkeys for the _Malta_ , and settled her own small pack over her shoulders.

Cassian opened his mouth, then immediately closed it again. She could feel him studying her face, as if he was searching for something. Jyn turned and walked across the hangar, following the signs to the quartermaster’s office. “Still not pissed,” she called over her shoulder without looking.

 A moment later, he caught up to her, his pack swinging loosely under his arm. He didn’t speak, but when she peered carefully at him from the corner of her eyes, she couldn’t see any sign that he was upset or worried. He fell into step with her as easily as he had the first day they had met, as easily as if he had been doing it all his life. He kept his attention mostly towards the right side of their path, knowing that Jyn naturally checked her left more often.

She wondered if it would ever really stop surprising her, how easy it was to be with him.

Of course, he hadn’t looked at that datacard from the Security Station yet.  

Jyn bit down on the inside of her cheek to distract herself from following that line of thought. It still wasn’t the time for that. Not yet.

Although, she reflected as they turned the corner and saw the quartermaster’s counter just a few steps ahead, that time was rapidly bearing down on her.

“Andor, Captain, unit number eight-seven-onith-two-besh,” Cassian said before the Devaronian at the counter could greet them. He set the passkeys on the countertop and tugged the open datapad sitting nearby towards himself, tapping through the various screens to get to the ship sign-in page with experienced ease. Jyn dropped her pack to the ground with an unceremonious thump. She had long ago learned that it was always smart to take what little rests she could when lugging packs; even if it was light at the beginning of the lug, the smallest weight could become crushing if carried too long without rest. Saw had taught her that, back when she complained about lugging a pack just as tiny as La Kai Oba’s little schoolbag –

_Shite, Erso. Not. The. Time._

Not yet, anyway.

The Devaronian pursed his purple and red lips, then nodded, apparently pleased to be dealing with an expert. “Thank you, Captain. A Nesst freighter? Lovely, I’ve got some crates I need shipped out soon. The _Malta_ , yes, wonderful, that will do nicely. Let’s see, now, Andor, Andor…” The Devaronian, a sergeant in the Logistics Corps according to his badge, scrolled through his own datapad as Cassian swiftly found and filled out whatever form they had to turn in to register the ship. “Ah, here we go,” he said a moment before Cassian tapped the final button and set the stylus down again. “You are slated for, ah, ‘Supply Operations.’ From a supply base. How appropriately vague.” He looked up at them both and gave them a large, knowing wink, pleased with himself for catching on to what he probably thought of as their ‘secret’ identities. Cassian managed a faint, polite smile. Jyn didn’t bother. 

It didn’t seem to matter to the quartermaster sergeant either way; he tapped his datapad a few more times, then reached behind the counter and brought up another set of passkeys. “Here you go. Two-two-peth-one-usk. Sitting in Hangar Bay 1, just to the left of the airlock. Should be easy to get clearance out of the hangar from that spot, no waiting for anyone to clear the path ahead of you!” He set the passkeys on the counter, and Cassian reached to sign the datapad he held out while Jyn snagged the keys.

“Name?” She asked, tucking the passkeys into the inner pocket of her jacket where they wouldn’t fall out.

“Name? Oh, of the ship!” The Devaronian laughed, taking back his datapad and shaking his head. “Sorry, Sergeant, I didn’t mention – it’s a U-Wing.”

She frowned, because what the hells did that have to do with anything?

“U-Wings don’t have names,” the quartermaster explained, still smiling. “They’re technically classified as fighter craft, so they only get numbers. It makes them ideal for people who – ah, well,” he paused, and pointed to Cassian. Cassian, who was watching her again with those dark eyes, shadows gathered in them that she wasn’t always sure she could read.

“It makes them suited for people who don’t have names, either,” he said.

The anger flared in her chest, then burned out almost as fast. Jyn was a lot of things, but she was no hypocrite. She could redirect that rage at the world that forced them into fake names and lies later. Not much later, she thought as Cassian signed for the passkey to their temporary quarters and led her away from the counter. But still. Later.

“We’ll probably only be here tonight,” Cassian said as he opened the door to a narrow room with a small bed in one corner and a smaller desk crammed in the other. “I’ll send a mission complete confirmation now, and then start on my full report. Command will probably respond by tomorrow morning.”

Jyn nodded, snagged his pack from him and slung it alongside her own on the bed. It creaked softly under the impact, but not nearly as loud as she expected. Hm, might actually be a decent mattress on there. Which was good, because a bed that made too much noise when she moved was distracting, setting off all her alarms and making it hard for her to focus on –

Well. Things.

That was, of course, assuming that she slept here tonight.

Not yet, she told herself, feeling increasingly desperate. Not yet, not yet, damn it, _not yet._

Oblivious to her thoughts, Cassian shrugged off his heavy leather jacket and set it neatly over the back of the cheap office chair sitting by the desk, then pulled out his datapad from his belt and snapped it open. The screen lit up, and Jyn could just see the header of the file he had open. _Day 1: Reconnaissance. Evir N’halo Market, The Copper Ring, Resh District._

“I’ll get food,” Jyn told his bent head, still standing by the door. She kept her voice light and her stance loose, and was rewarded when he merely nodded.

“Thanks.”

The datacard was nowhere in sight, probably still in his jacket somewhere, but Jyn could feel it like the sharp edge of a blade against the back of her neck. Like a razor pressed against her heart, not yet cutting into the soft flesh underneath, not yet bleeding her dry.

Not yet.

“Hey,” she said abruptly, and when Cassian raised his head to look at her, Jyn strode across the short distance between them and dug her hands into his hair. She pulled his head back and crushed her lips against his, and if she could have she would have smiled at how quickly he responded, how smoothly he dropped the datapad into his lap and reached to cup her face, how easily he gentled her near-frantic kiss into something slow and soft. How easy it was to let him.

But when he tugged lightly backwards, coaxing her towards his lap, she resisted. “Food,” she murmured against his lips.

Cassian huffed a soft laugh that ghosted his warm breath over her cheek. “Right,” he pulled back and nodded gravely to her, although the smile in the corners of his lips was brighter, clearer. Hers. “I see you have your priorities in order, Sergeant.”

“Damn straight,” Jyn allowed herself one last luxury, running her hands through his hair and down the back of his neck, watching the way his eyes fluttered half-closed, his neck hands reaching up blindly to close gently around her wrists. He held her in place a moment longer, not a demand, but a request. Jyn traced her thumbs over his pulse on either side, and then pulled clear.

“Mess hall’s to the left,” Cassian said as she turned to leave. “Midrats should be available, but a base this small won’t have too many eating at this hour. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” she grunted without turning around. She started to say the automatic response, _I’ll see you too_ , but the words stuck in her throat. _Not yet_ , she thought to her hands as she reached for the door, willing them not to shake. _Please, not yet_.

Behind her, she could hear him rustling through his jacket. The datacard, she thought, and the razor pressed harder against her heart. He was pulling out the datacard.

The door shut behind her.

Jyn turned right, and marched down the corridor until she found a small door they had passed on their way to the temp quarters. MAINTENANCE ONLY, the tiny flickering screen over the keypad read. Jyn popped the cover off the pad and grabbed two tiny wires from the mess of electronics packed underneath. It took her roughly five seconds to twist them together, and then another three to tap in a sequence that gave these older corporate locks electronic fits. The keypad beeped, and the door slid open with a faint whine of rusty hinges. Jyn winced and glanced down the corridor. Nothing.

She slipped inside, making certain to flick on the little flashlight that Cassian had given her before the door closed behind her.

The space was small and cold, the hum of fans overhead fighting to keep all the electronics in this maintenance room cool enough to operate. The server stack to her left was old, still in good enough shape to keep the base networks running, but in need of constant external cooling. Jyn edged around the stack until she was out of sight of the door and out of the direct line of cold air from the fans. She found herself wedged into a tiny space against the wall and the server, no light but the little circle illuminated by Cassian’s flashlight.

She breathed in. Slid to the floor with her knees bent before her, and thought, _okay._

 _Now_.

 

 

**[2301 Galactic Standard Time, Lothal Year 3276]**

The panic struck like a snake, slicing across her chest and cutting her breath short, digging into her heart and ripping at her belly. Jyn wrapped her arms around her knees and curled inward, the light shivering and bouncing in her hand as she clutched it.

On Kafrene, he had asked her where she would go, once the Alliance found her father. He had stared at her with empty eyes, his face so completely neutral that she had the ridiculous, wild idea it was really a mask, something she could reach out and tear away with from him – and he had asked her where she would go. As if he knew she would. As if she had to.

As if it wasn’t even a choice.

And she’d known then, in that terrible, cold moment – it might not be.

Jyn had only a dim memory of her father’s old job title, of the things her parents used to tell her about his work, but she knew he had officially only ever been an ‘energy conservationist,’ an engineer devoted to the study of power sources and systems. But the Empire had chased her father across the galaxy, hunted him for years before they found him on Lah’mu. The Empire had been willing to spend vast resources to find one scientist, willing to rip him from his house, murder the woman who tried to take him back, and chase his child across the stars for _fourteen years_. The Alliance itself had seen something in their stolen information that made them classify her as a priority package, something that made them force Cassian to choose her life – or her death – over any other consideration.

These weren’t the sort of things that mighty empires or desperate rebellions did for nothing. These weren’t the actions of organizations competing to build the better battery, or create more efficient power grids. Whatever her father was doing, whatever he had done ( _everything I do, I do to protect you_ ), it was - it could only be - monstrous.

Ice danced down her spine, the light blurred and flickered in her vision, in and out. She was alone in the dark and it was terrible, it was cold, it was…but where could she go? Where would she go, when her father was found, and Cassian read whatever it was he had done?

Where would she go, when he looked at her with horror in his eyes?

Because she knew, deep down in her trembling guts, she knew that when Cassian showed her whatever evil thing Galen Erso had done…

She wouldn’t hate him.

Fuck.

There is was.

She wouldn’t hate him. Didn’t hate him. Didn’t love him, couldn’t love him, didn’t even know him. How could she love him, when she had been given no time with him? But she _remembered_ loving him, and that was enough. When she walked back into that room and Cassian showed her the monster her father had become, Jyn would not hate him.

And Cassian would.

She’d only known him a month, but Jyn could picture with exquisite clarity the way his lip curled slightly when he spoke of the Imperial collaborators who plagued Alliance Counter Intelligence. She knew the frigid disapproval and anger that he kept tightly under control when he spoke of those who turned their eyes away from the fight, those who allowed themselves to close their eyes from the Empire’s cruelty. She had seen it directed at herself, faint but present, even as he knelt in front of her in Alliance Command. He had looked her in the eye and his voice had frosted around the edges as he asked her - _because he is a cog in the Imperial war machine?_

 _No_ , she had wanted to confess but didn’t dare. _Because he left me behind_.

Maybe it didn’t even matter what she thought of Galen Erso. Maybe it wouldn’t matter at all if she hated him, or loved him, or a little bit of both. Cassian would submit what he found in those files to Command, and they would…

The possibilities crawled over her skin, and Jyn closed her eyes tight not to see them, not to see the little flashlight flickering in the dark. They would order her imprisoned, perhaps. Or put her in a carefully monitored, heavily guarded work station alone somewhere in the bowels of the rebellion, which would be essentially the same thing. Maybe Draven would even have her taken somewhere quiet and –

Cassian wouldn’t allow that. He wouldn’t let them kill her for convenience, he wasn’t that kind of person, and he had the clout with the generals to at least ask for that. They wouldn’t want to ruin him that way, not now, not when he was the best they had in an increasingly small force. Jyn ground her teeth and hugged herself tight and told herself that he wouldn’t let them kill her.

 _But he might allow the rest_ , a small, insidious voice whispered in her heart, sharp as a serpent’s tooth, sharp as a razor. He might ask for a reassignment, he had that power. If she wasn’t his partner, she wasn’t his problem. He could let himself focus elsewhere, let himself pretend that her fate wasn’t in his purview. Let himself believe that he had no power to interfere. That it wasn’t his problem.

That’s what she would do. What she had _done._ Galen Erso ( _Papa, Papa, where are you? Please please come get me, it’s cold and it’s dark and I’m hungry, Papa, please please_ ) was dead, he was dead and the Empire had won and there was so little she could do about it. She fought for the Alliance because there was nowhere else to go and she had been so fucking hungry, so fucking cold.

Something hard was digging into her chest, the razor blade trying to pierce through – no wait, an actual object was digging into her chest. Jyn swallowed around her dry throat and fumbled stiff fingers through her jacket. With a tiny metal clatter, a set of passkeys fell out of her inner pocket to the floor between her boots, and Jyn froze.

Passkeys.

Two-two-peth-one-usk, in the hangar closest to the airlock. Easy to get departure clearance, no one ahead in the path. A ship without a name, perfect for someone hiding their own.

Slowly, Jyn leaned down and picked up the passkeys, letting them dangle between her fingers as she directed the flashlight on them.

Where would she go?

Home One, that was actually an option. She wouldn’t be deserting then, would she? Just go back, ask for a reassignment. They’d probably give her one, if she beat Cassian’s report back. If she didn’t, well, they would throw her in the brig or some forsaken labor position anyway, and at least she wouldn’t have to face Cassian. Wouldn’t have to see the anger, the horror, the frozen wastelands in his eyes.

Or she could just…go. She’d traveled a lot for the Alliance, under various names. Made various contacts. Most of them didn’t know she was a rebel, and some of them would work with her again. She could get a job somewhere. On a convoy as security maybe, always moving. Run some jobs for the rougher characters in the underbelly of Correllia, that had worked out okay for her last time she was there.

The keys swung gently in her grip, dancing in time to her shivering fingers.

It would be easier, she thought bitterly, if she could just hate them. But she couldn’t, she could never hate either of them, not the father who had left her behind, not the partner who might do the same.

That word caught in her mind like lace on a rough fingernail, like a backdoor in the code. _Might._

He’d kissed her on Kafrene like she was the only thing in the universe he cared about, when the alarms screamed for his head all around them.

He’d followed the Partisan squad who had captured her in Jedha, and shot them when they tried to hurt her.

He’d put a cyanide pill in his mouth when he thought he would have to kill her.

He might turn his back on her when he learned what a monster her father had become, when he learned that Jyn cared about him anyway.

 _But_ , she thought grimly, folding the keys tight into her hand until they dug hard into her palm, only barely kept from slicing open her skin by the tough leather of her gloves.

But he might not.

_She felt him tensing under her, his hips stuttering up to meet her, and she planted her hands on his chest and leaned over him. Look at me, she ordered softly, and then softer still, please._

_He opened his eyes and she saw starlight again._

If she stayed, she might not see that starlight again. If she left, she knew she never would.

“Alright,” Jyn said into the dark, her voice only just audible to her own ears over the humming of the server stack. “Alright.”

She pushed herself awkwardly to her feet in the tight space, bringing the flashlight up to show her the way back around the server to the door. She resolutely ignored the walls brushing against her shoulders as she inched around, ignored the tight choking sensation in her throat. She’d done it to herself, hadn’t she? _Suck it up and deal with it, Sergeant. Sergeant Jyn_ Erso, _daughter of Galen and Lyra._

Still, it was a relief to make it back out into the corridor. Her heart still pounded in her chest as she made her way to the right, passing their quarters without a hitch in her step. Her chest still felt tight, her hands clammy, her focus jittery as she moved into the line for the food counter in the mostly-empty galley.

Midnight Rations were being served, evening meal for the swing shift personnel and mid-meal for the night crew. The flamboyantly colored Lowen behind the food counter was more than happy to package up a couple meals for Jyn, whistling to herself as she ruffled her pink and orange feathers in time with the beat. “Extra scoop of sweet cream, too, Sarge,” she chirped, plopping two small containers into the paper bag. “Midrats is the only meal they serve sweet cream, so you’re in luck! It’s supposed to be some kind of apology from Command for working the late hours.” She paused, and trilled a little laugh. “Joke’s on them, though. I’m nocturnal!”

Jyn grunted, took the bag, and left before anyone else could start a conversation with her.

 

 

**[2354 Galactic Standard Time, Lothal Year 3276]**

She didn’t stand around outside her door, didn’t give herself the chance to think before she slapped the keypad and marched into the room.

Cassian was gone.

Jyn jolted to a stop, the bag swinging from her hand, the razor slicing at her heart because he was gone and she hadn’t even had the chance to know what he’d found, hadn’t even said goodbye, not like this, not yet –

A door opened in the side wall, sliding back on old, rusty slats as Cassian shoved it aside and walked out of the ‘fresher she hadn’t noticed before. “That took a bit longer than I thought,” he said mildly. “Long lines?”

Jyn dropped the bag on the bed and stalked closer. “No,” she said, and wrapped her arms around his chest, because what the fuck else could she do? Where else in all the vast uncaring universe could she go that would be worth giving up this?

She felt Cassian startle, but then he shifted his weight and settled easily into her grip, his own arms tight around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said softly into her hair, because he understood what she was doing even without knowing why she needed it. “It’s okay, Jyn. It’s going to be okay.”

“It might not,” she muttered, because sometimes honesty was all she had to give him.

“It will,” he countered immediately, no hesitation, no falter in his tone. “Eventually, Jyn, it will. We’ll make it work. We’ll be okay.”

Jyn turned her head to press her cheek against his shoulder, shuffled as close as she could, and let herself believe him. The passkeys to the U-Wing pressed against her chest again, squashed between their bodies, but it seemed almost laughable now that she would go anywhere without Cassian. The dark and the cold had been driven far away by the warmth of his body, by the promise in his voice, and maybe Command would try to take her from him but she would be _damned_ if she went quietly. And damned if she didn’t trust him to come after her.

“Alright,” she said into his shoulder, and felt him press a hard kiss to her throat, his lips burning against her pulse like a brand, like a promise.

“Alright,” he echoed, holding her tight against him, and Jyn knew that whatever came next, wherever they were sent or whatever they had to face – as long as she was with him, they would be alright.

As long as she was with him, she was home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**[0001 Galactic Standard Time, Lothal Year 3276]**

“I messaged Command,” Cassian leaned into her, hand running up and down her back _._ “Received the fastest response of my career. We’re headed back to Jedha.”

She tensed, felt him holding his breath until she relaxed back into his arms. “Dangerous. Must be something important there.”

“A defector,” he explained. “This database mentions a defector from the Imperial Logistics Corps. They were running kyber between Jedha and an unnamed location – but it’s somewhere important to this project. Imperial Intelligence thinks the defector’s trying to make contact with Saw Gerrera, so our Command is sending us there to get them.”

“Before the Imperials, or before Saw?”

“Both, hopefully.”

Jyn bit her lip, hunted for a way to tell him that he might not like what else he found in that database, when he went looking for Galen Erso. Might not like what his partner’s father had become, nor her reaction to it. She stared blankly at the wall over his shoulder, searching for the right words – and a flicker of light caught the corner of her eye. She shifted her head slightly so she could see around his shoulder better.

The datacard was plugged into a small console he must have checked out from the quartermaster when she wasn’t paying attention. A picture of her father’s face stared at her, hollow cheeks, empty eyes, Imperial uniform. And under that, in various windows, she could see charts full of materials, weights, energy ratings, hyperspace coefficients…she didn’t understand it all, couldn’t begin to interpret the rows and rows of meticulous Imperial shipping records that probably spanned hundreds of systems, but she could make out a few specific words, highlighted and repeating over and over throughout all the screens, hovering under Galen Erso’s face like a damning accusation. _Weapon. Kyber. Erso._

He’d already read it, she realized. Cassian had already worked his way through whatever security protocols protected the Imperial database and found all the information she had been so terrified would be revealed. While she had curled up in the kriffing server room and worked herself into a terror over the maybes and the what-ifs, he had just gone ahead and found that open sore in her soul and ripped it open for review.

Cassian must have felt her freeze again, because his hands slid up and cupped gently around the base of her neck. “Jyn,” he said. “Jyn, it’s okay.” He kissed her temple, not even seeming to notice the way her shaking fingers dug into his arms, not trying to pull away at all. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“That’s…a lot of kyber,” she managed around a desert-dry throat, a stupid karking thing to say but the only thing that she could force out. “It’s a _lot_ of kyber. How can they possibly need…?”

Into her hair, his arms still tight around her, Cassian sighed. “I don’t know,” he murmured, and his hands were still so tender on her skin, but sure as a promise, steady as a heartbeat.

“But they call it a planet killer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know for sure what the calendar looked like before the Alliance started labeling everything ['Before the Battle of Yavin'](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/0_BBY) and 'After the Battle of Yavin,' but the Lothal calendar seems pretty common, so I went with that. Since 0 BBY = Lothal Year 3277, and this is set at least eight or nine months BBY, I went with Lothal Year 3276. Also, "Galactic Standard Time" is pretty much just Coruscant time, because of course the Emperor wanted everyone to run on his schedule. And since Coruscant has a [24 hour period rotation](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar), that would make 0000 = midnight GST. 
> 
> [Garos IV](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Garos_IV) is a planet in the Outer Territories that has a very interesting past, and has some significance to the Galactic Civil war many years past the point where this story ends. Mount Usca is in fact a large mountain where the Empire set up a mining base (that also has some interesting history in the SW universe), although the mining company is purely made up - which I mean in the double sense that I made it up, and so did the Alliance, as a cover for their base. 
> 
> I don't know if the Alliance actually had a Family Services or other organization designed to deal with refugees or the families of their soldiers, but they damn well _should have_.
> 
>  _Fuego y fuerza!_ = "fire and force!"
> 
> [The UT-60D U-wing](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/UT-60D_U-wing_starfighter/support_craft) is in fact classified as a starfighter/support vessel, although it seems to primarily be a means of troop transport into hot zones. Fighter craft are not given names the way ships and larger transport vehicles are (my jet, for example, has a number on the side, but no name). It seems convenient for X-Wing pilots, who probably swap in and out of whatever craft is functional at the moment, and for spies, who consider names to be dangerous things anyway.
> 
> [Lowen](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lowen) are a neat feathery species that I only recently discovered. No canon sources on whether or not they whistle or are insufferably cheerful in the middle of the night as a race, but the one working the Garos Base Galley sure is. Midrats/Midnight Rations are a common meal served on military bases and ships. The night patrols/crew need to eat their 3 solid meals too, and they sleep through breakfast. Pilots, who have a weirded schedule, will often eat at midrats too, because meals are easy to miss. Typically midrats runs from about an hour prior to midnight until a couple hours after it. And in my experience, it's the only time they serve ice cream. 
> 
> No, the files don't mention anything about the defector save for "pilot" and some nebulous connection to G. Erso and the kyber trade.
> 
> Yes, they are going to be okay. Cassian promised.


End file.
